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LOCKYER'S ASTRONOMY. 

ELEMENTS OF ASTRONOMY : 

Accompanied with numerous Illustrations, a Colored Repr^ 

sentation of the Solar, Stellar, and Nebular Spectra, 

and Celestial Charts of v Northern 

and the Southern Hemisphere. 

By J. Norman Lockyer. 

American editwn, revised and specially adapted to the Schooli 
of the United States. 

iQmo. 312 pagts. Pricey $1.50. 

The volume is as practical as possible. To aid the student 
in identifying the stars and constellations, the fine Celestial 
Charts of Arago, which answer all the purposes of a costly Atlas 
of the Heavens, are appended to the work — this being the only 
text-book, as far as the Publishers are aware, that possesses this 
great advantage. Directions are given for finding the most in- 
teresting objects in the heavens at certain hours on different 
evenings throughout the year. Every device is used to make 
the study interesting; and the Publishers feel assured that 
teachers who once try this book will be unwilling to exchange 
it for any other. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 

549 '-^ 551 Broadway, New Youl 



HISTORY PRIMERS, edited h 

J. R. Green. 



EUROPE. 



BxxWitXB. Edited by]. R. Green. 



HISTORY 



OF 



EUROPE. 




, \ 



^ 



^ 



BY 



ro 



\^ EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., LL.D., 



LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
KNIGHT COMMANDER OF THE GREEK ORDER OF THE SAVIOUR. 




NEW YORK : 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 AND 551 Broadway. 

1877. 






Ithe library 

Of CONGRESS 
WASHlNOTONi 



^"'^ft 8 t9®9 



/Z-^^V3^ 



CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. EUROPE AND ITS INHABITANTS . c , . . 5 

IT. THE GREEKS . . o 12 

III. THE GROWTH OF ROME , . . , . . . . 27 

IV. THE DECLINE OF ROME . , 45 

V. THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST .... 54 

VI. THE FOUNDATION OF THE EUROPEAN NATIONS 64 

VII. THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES ....... 73 

VIII. THE DECLINE OF THE TWO EMPIRES .... Ss 

IX. THE REFORMATION AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS 95 

X. THE GREATNESS OF FRANCE. ...... Ill 

XI. THE ALLIANCE OF THE BOURBON KINGDOMS . I18 

XII. THE FRENCH REVOLU'TION 1 28 

XIII. THE REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY . . 1 39 



LIST OF MAPS. 

PAGE 

1. THE GREEK COLONIES 16 

2. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT . 43 

3. THE EMPIRE UNDER JUSTINIAN 5^ 

4. THE EMPIRE UNDER CHARLES THE GREAT . . 61 

5. EUROPE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY .... 78 

6. EUROPE UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH .... 98 



HISTORICAL PRIMERS. 

EUROPE. 

CHAPTER I. 

EUROPE AND ITS INHABITANTS. 

I. The Races of Man. — As far back as we can 
learn anything, we find different nations speaking 
different languages ; that is, different nations have 
used different words as the names of the same things. 
But even when several nations speak languages which 
are now so unlike that they cannot understand one 
another, it is often easy to see that there was a time 
when they all spoke the same language. Thus we 
can see that the chief words and forms of words in 
several languages were once the same. When we see 
that what we call night is in German nacht, in Latin 
noct, and in Greek nykt, and when we see the same 
kind of likeness in a great many other words, we 
need not doubt that all these tongues were once only 
one tongue. By thus comparing many languages 
together, we can class the chief nations of the world 
under several great groups. Each of these groups now 
contains several nations speaking several languages, 
which were once one nation speaking one language. 
In this book it will be enough to speak of those 



6 HISTOR Y OF E UROPE. [chap. 

nations only which have at any time lived in Europe, 
and in those parts of Asia and Africa whose history 
has been always mixed up with that of Europe. These 
we may class under three great heads, the Aryan and 
the Semitic nations, and those which, whether they 
are all akin to each other or not, we may put together 
as not belonging to either of the other two classes. 

2. The Aryan Nations. — The group of nations 
to which most of the nations of Europe have belonged 
ever since the beginning of trustworthy history is 
commonly called the Aryan group. Nearly all the 
languages which are now spoken in Europe and in 
other lands where Europeans have settled, as well as 
the languages which are spoken in a great part of 
Asia, were all once one language. The people who 
spoke this old Aryan language once lived all together 
in the middle parts of Asia, and they found out 
some of the most needful arts, and had got some no- 
tions of religion and governmeYit, before they began to 
spread in different directions. We know this, because 
many of the chief words which have to do with these 
matters are still the same in all or most of the iVryan 
tongues. But, long before written history begins, these 
old forefathers of ours began to leave their old seats 
and to move, some to the west and some to the 
south-east. Those who pushed to the south-east 
settled in Persia and northern India. The old 
language of northern India, the Sanscrit, has 
changed less than any other tongue from the first form 
of the common Aryan speech. The other Aryan 
nations pressed westward, and settled in Europe, 
and in the parts of Asia nearest to Europe. And 
from Europe men have in later times gone forth and 
made settlements or colonies in America and 
Australia, where they still keep the languages of 
those parts of Europe from which they first set out. 

3. The Semitic Nations. — The other chief 
group which concerns us is that of the Semitic 



I.] AR YAJV AND NON-AR YAN NA TIONS, 7 

nations, who chiefly settled in those parts of Asia 
which lie between the eastern and western divisions of 
the Aryan group. These are the Jews, Phcenicians, 
Syrians, and Arabs. The languages of all these 
nations are very nearly akin. These Semitic nations 
have filled a much smaller part of the world than the 
Aryans ; but their place in history has been very 
great. For the three religions which have taught men 
to worship one God, the Jewish, the Christian, and 
the Mahometan, all arose among them. The Phoeni- 
cians and Arabs also have at different times made 
conquests and planted colonies in a large part of 
Africa and even of Europe. 

4. The non-Aryan Nations of Europe. — 
When the Aryans first came into Europe, they found 
men living there who were neither Aryan nor Semitic, 
and whom, as they pushed on step by step, they 
destroyed or drove into corners. In some few parts 
of Europe there still are some remains of these old 
non-Aryan races. In the mountainous lands on 
the borders of Spain and Gaul men still speak the 
Basque tongue, which is one of the tongues which 
were spoken before the Aryans came. These Basques 
once filled all Spain, and much of western Europe, 
but now they are driven up into a corner. And, in 
another corner in the north, the Fins and JLaps, 
the remains of another non-Aryan people, also speak 
a non- Aryan tongue. And in some parts of eastern 
Europe non-Aryan nations have come in as con- 
querors of Aryan nations. These are the Hun- 
garians and the Turks, both of whom made their 
way mto Europe in times of which the history is well 
known. But the Hungarians, though they have kept 
their non-Aryan language, have taken to the religion 
and manners of Europe. This the Turks have not 
done. Except these small remains of the nations 
which lived in Europe before the Aryans came, and 
these two non-Aryan nations who have come into 



8 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Europe in later times, all the nations of Europe, and 
all the European settlements in other parts of the 
world, speak languages which have sprung from the 
original Aryan stock. 

5. The Geography of Europe. — The continent 
of Europe, into which the western branch of the 
Aryans came, is made up of a solid mass of land in 
the middle, which joins on to Asia without any break, 
and of two systems of islands, peninsulas, and inland 
seas to the north and south. The whole southern 
part of Europe is washed by the Mediterranean 
Sea, the great inland sea which lies between the 
three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This 
southern part is chiefly made up of three great penin- 
sulas, those of Greece, Italy, and Spain, which 
are cut off by mountains — the Pyrenees, Alps, and 
others — from the great mass of central Europe. In 
the Mediterranean Sea are several great islands, as 
Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, and Cyprus, and many 
smaller ones, especially in the sea which lies between 
Greece and Asia, called the -ffigsean Sea or Archi- 
pelago. All this end of Europe is made up of 
islands and peninsulas, with gulfs and straits of the 
sea running among them. To the north again we get 
something of the same kind on a smaller scale. The 
Baltic Sea and its gulfs answer to the Mediter- 
ranean, and the peninsulas and islands of Scandi- 
navia, that is, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 
keep a faint likeness to the islands and peninsulas of 
the south. And to the north-west of Europe hes a 
great group of islands, our own island of Britain, 
the other great island of Ireland, with many smaller 
ones. And Iceland, another great island, Hes far 
far away to the north-west, cut off from the rest of the 
world. 

6. Settlement of the Aryans in Europe. — 
Such were the lands into which the western branch 
of the Aryans began to press long before trustworthy 



I.] EUROPE AND ITS INHABITANTS, 9 

history begins. The two great peninsulas of Greece 
and Italy were settled by one branch of the Aryan 
family, which seems also to have spread itself over 
the lands near to Greece, both in Europe and in 
Asia. In central Europe the Celts came first; they 
pressed to the west, and setded in Gaul, the British 
Islands, northern Italy, and a great part of Spain. 
They were followed by the Teutonic branch, that to 
which we ourselves belong. These pushed upon the 
Celts from the east, and occupied Germany and 
Scandinavia, and, at a later time, the most part of 
Britain. The Celtic languages are now spoken only 
in some small parts of Gaul and the British Islands ; 
but in Germany, Scandinavia, and the greater part of 
Britain, Teutonic languages are still spoken. Of 
these four, Greeks, Italians, Celts, and Teutons, came 
most of the chief nations of Europe. But beyond the 
Teutons came another swarm. One branch, the 
smallest of all, was the people of Lithuania and 
Old Prussia. Their tongue is now spoken by very 
few people, but it has changed less from the oldest 
Aryan tongue than that of any other people in 
Europe. The other branch is that of the Slaves, 
whose name in their own tongue means glorious, 
though in other tongues it has another meaning, 
because bondmen of Slavonic race were once very 
common. These are the people of Poland, Russia, 
and of eastern Europe, including many of the nations 
which are now subject to the Turks. Thus various 
Aryan nations, from the old Greeks onwards, have 
spread themselves over all Europe, save only where 
a few of the older people are still left, or where non- 
Aryan people have come in in much later times. 

7. The Three Chief Races of Europe. — 
Now of all the branches of the Aryan family which 
have settled in Europe, three have been, at different 
times and in different ways, the leaders of all the 
rest. The first were the old Greeks ; then the people 



lo HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

of Italy, or more truly the one Italian city of Rome ; 
and lastly the Teutonic nations. For it was in the 
lands round the Mediterranean Sea that the true 
civilization of the world began, and it was in Greece 
that it began first of all. Here history, truly 
so called, begins, the history of men as members of 
a free commonwealth. The language and art of the 
Greeks, the works of their writers, and their build- 
ings, have had a power over men's minds ever since. 
In this" way, and not by conquest, Greece has 
influenced the world. Rome, on the other hand, 
influenced the world both by conquest and by giving 
her laws to the nations which she conquered. Under 
Rome all the then civilized world, all the lands 
round the Mediterranean Sea, in Europe, Asia, and 
Africa, became one empire governed by one law;, 
and the power of that empire and of that law has 
never died away. For the next race which rose to 
the head, our own Teutonic race, did in a manner 
continue Rome's power, as the Teutons became half 
conquerors of Rome and half disciples. 

8, Rome the Centre of European History. 
Now of all European history Rome is the centre. 
The history of Europe is almost wholly made up, 
first, of the steps by which the older states came under 
the power of Rome, S.nd secondly, of the way in 
which the modern states of Europe were formed by 
the breaking up of that power. Greece alone has a 
real history of its own, earlier than that of Rome 
and independent of it. Then in after times the 
chief place passed to the Teutonic nations who 
settled and conquered within the Roman empire, but 
who learned their arts, laws, manners, religion, and 
language from those whom they conquered. Since 
then the Teutonic nations have kept at the head, for, 
though nations speaking other languages have often 
done great things, yet they have done so chiefly by 
help of Teutonic laws and rulers. The Celts by them- 



I.] ROME THE GREAT CENTRE. ii 

selves have done but little; they came too soon 
to hold a chief place. But the Celts of Gaul, the 
people of the modern kingdom of France, have 
held one of the first places in Europe by help of 
what they learned, first from Roman and then from 
Teutonic conquerors. And, as the Celts came too 
soon, so the Slaves came too late. They have formed 
several powerful nations, yet they have never taken 
the lead in the way that the Greeks, Romans, and 
Teutons have done. Our history then will mainly be 
a history of the way in which the Roman dominion 
came together, and of the way in which it fell asunder. 
9. Things common to all the European 
Nations. — If the Aryan people ever were mere 
savages, that time had passed away before they came 
into Europe. They had already made some way in 
the most needful arts, and all of them had much 
the same original form of government. x\s families 
and clans grew into tribes, and as tribes grew into 
nations, each tribe or nation had a king or chief of 
some kind, a council of elders or nobles, and a general 
assembly of the whole people. And there was com- 
monly a three-fold distinction between the nobles 
by birth, the common freemen, and their slaves. 
or bondmen. Out of these elements, all modern, 
European society has grown up. The oJd, Aryans, 
had also a common religion, which toofc different: 
forms among different nations, but in alL of which, 
many gods were worshipped, the chief gods having^ 
been at first the great powers of nature, as. the .sky 
and the sun. Afterwards Chi^istianity became 'the 
religion of the Romati Empire, a,nd spread , gradually 
over all Europe ; but it took somewhat :d,i|ferent forms 
in eastern and western, in nprthern a/nd southern, 
Europe. But for many ages past, all the people of 
Europe have been Christiai;is of some kind, except 
perhaps a few non-Aryan, people in the extreme 
north, and also except the Mahometans who in some 



12 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

parts have come in as conquerors. This they did in 
Spain and Sicily, whence they have been driven out, 
and in south-eastern Europe, where they still abide. 

TO. Summary. — Europe then is a continent con- 
sisting of three main parts, Southern, Central, and 
Northern. Of these, the southern part consists of the 
islands and peninsulas of the Mediterranean Sea, 
among which the history of civihzed man begins. 
Of the great families of mankind, those which con- 
cern us are the Aryan, the Semitic, and the others 
whom we may call n on- Aryan. Successive swarms of 
Aryan nations have gradually settled in Europe, 
destroying the older people or driving them into 
corners. These Aryan nations had all once been one 
people, and they still showed signs of having been 
one people in their language, their religion, and 
their laws and manners. Among the nations, three, 
the Greeks, the Romans, and the Teutons, have, one 
after another, held the chief place. Among these 
again, the Romans at one time united under their 
power all the nations round the Mediterranean Sea, 
and European history is chiefly made up of the way 
in which their dominion came together and broke 
asunder. Lastly, all the Aryan nations of Europe 
gradually embraced the Christian religion, though that 
religion took different forms in different countries. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE GREEKS. 

I. Greece and the Greek People. — As Europe 
has more inland seas, islands, and peninsulas than 
any other part of the old world, so Greece has more 
inland seas, islands, and peninsulas than any other 
part of Europe. It is also a very mountainous land. 



II.] GREECE AND THE GREEKS, 13 

SO that the whole of Greece is made up of peninsulas, 
islands, and valleys, cut off from one another either 
by the sea or by the mountains. Tlius the men who 
dwelled in that land could hardly fail to become a 
sea-faring folk, and to plant colonies in other lands. 
They were also sure not to join under one govern- 
ment, but to keep apart in small states, each town or 
district being, or trying to be, independent of all 
others. And, though no part of Greece is very far 
from the sea, yet some parts are more inland, and 
some parts are still fuller of islands and peninsulas, 
than others ; and it was in the parts of Greece which 
lay nearest to the sea that the most famous Greek 
cities arose. And from the sea-faring parts of Greece 
men went forth who planted Greek colonies, some in 
the neighbouring islands, and some at more distant 
points round a large part of the coast of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, The name which the Greeks called 
themselves, was Hellenes, and wherever Hellenes 
dwelled was Hellas. Thus there were patches of 
Hellas in many parts of the Mediterranean coasts, 
planted in the midst of other nations. But in Greece 
itself all was Hellas, and none but Hellenes dwelled 
there. 

2. Character of the Greeks. — Now all these 
things, division into many small states, a sea-far- 
ing life, and all that such a life leads to, are things 
that greatly tend to sharpen the wits, and Greece was 
peopled by men who had more wits to sharpen 
than any other men. Another people in Greece might 
not have done such great things as the Greeks did ; 
and the Greeks might not have done such great 
things in any other land. But the land and its people 
fitted one another, and so great things came of them. 
The Greeks had the start of all other people in litera- 
ture and art and science, and, above all, in the art 
of government or politics. For they were the first 
people who made free commonwealths, and who 



14 HISTORY OF EUROPE, ' [chap. 

put the power of the law instead of mere force and 
the arbitrary will of a single man. 

3. Greeks and Barbarians. — It is most likely 
that the Greeks and Italians, and several other nations 
of eastern Europe and western Asia, all belonged to 
the same great branch of the Aryan family. Any- 
how the Greeks and Itahans, the Sikels, who gave 
their name to the island of Sicily, the people to the 
north of Greece in Epeiros and Macedonia, and 
some of the people on the eastern coast of the^gsean 
Sea, were all akin to each other. But the Greeks 
early shot ahead of all their kinsfolk, so that they 
looked upon the rest as barbarians. This word at 
first meant simply people whose language could not 
be understood, and the Greeks called all nations 
by that name. They even called men barbarians 
whose tongue was really very nearly akin to their own, 
if it had so parted off that they could no longer 
understand it. Afterwards the word came to carry 
with it a certain feehng of contempt and disHke ; 
and in modern use it has a stronger meaning stilL 
But, at first, it simply meant not-Greek. All man- 
kind were either Hellenes or barbarians. 

4. The Phoenicians. — Among the barbarian 
nations, the Greek colonies had to deal with men 
of all the different nations round the Mediterranean. 
The Greeks of old Greece had in Kurope mainly 
to deal with the kindred nations who had not grown 
so fast as they had. Their first great barbarian 
rivals came from Asia. These were the Phoeni- 
cians, as the Greeks called them, but they called 
themselves Canaanites. They lived in Sidon and 
Tyre, and other cities on the Syrian coast, and 
they planted colonies in many parts of the Mediter- 
ranean before the Greeks did. The Greeks in earlier 
times drove them out of many of the islands of the 
^gsean Sea ; and in after times Greek and Phoenician 
colonies strove for the great islands of Sicily and 



II.] - THE GREEK COLONIES. 15 

Cyprus. And it was from the Phoenicians that the 
Greeks learned the art of alphabetic writing,"^ which 
the rest of Europe has learned from them. This is 
almost the only great gift which the Greeks got from 
any strangers. In everything else they wrought up 
the common stock of the Aryan family to greater 
perfection than any other people, and with less help 
irom strangers, 

5. The Greek Colonies. — When trustworthy 
history first begins, many Greek colonies had already 
been planted round a large part of the coast of the 
Mediterranean. But in some places the Phoenicians 
had got before the Greeks, and in others, as in central 
and northern Italy, the native people were too strong 
and brave to let any strangers settle among them. But 
Greek colonies were planted round the whole of the 
^gaean and part of the Euxine Sea ; in the lands and 
islands to the north-west of Greece ; in Sicily and 
southern Italy ; in Cyprus ; in the part of Africa which 
lies between Egypt and the great Phoenician settlement 
of Carthage; and on the Mediterranean coasts of Gaul 
and Spam. But no Greeks ever dared to pass the Pil- 
lars of Herakles, that is, the Straits of Gibraltar, to 
j^lant colonies on the coasts of the Ocean. Many of 
these colonies, as Miletos in Asia, Sybaris in Italy, 
oyracuse in Sicily, and Massalia, now Mar- 
seilles, in Gaul, were in early times among the great- 
est cities of the Greek zone. They everywhere spread 
the Greek tongue, and somewhat of Greek manners, 
among the people around them. The colonies on the 
western coast of Asia were among the oldest and most 
famous of all, and the story of the War of Troy, 
as sung by Homer, is most likely a legendary 
account of the Greek settlements in those lands. 

6. The Legendary Times of Greece. — We 
learn something of the state of Greece in very early 
times from the poems of Homer. In those days 
the Greeks had already made some progress in the 



HISTORY OF EUROPE. 




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II.] LEGENDARY GREECE, 17 

arts, and they had formed governments of the kind 
common to all the Aryan nations. Each city ot other 
small district had its king, with a council of elders or 
nobles, and an assembly of the people. But before 
historic times begin, kings were put aside in most 
Greek cities, and the power had come into the hands 
of the nobles. In early Greece also the geographical 
divisions, and the degree of power held by different 
cities, were quite unlike what they were afterwards. 
The catalogue of the Greek forces in Homer gives us 
a kind of map of legendary Greece, which is quite 
unhke anything in historical Greece. Thus, in the 
north of Greece, Thessaly was of much more import- 
ance than it was afterwards. Thus in Peloponnesos 
the chief power was at My kene, a city which in later 
times had no power at all. Agamemnon, King of 
Mykene, is described as the commander of the whole 
Greek force ; and in those early times his people, the 
Achaians, were certainly the head people of Pelo- 
ponnesos and of all Greece, and Mykene was their 
chief city. The southern islands of the ^^gaean were 
already Greek, but no part of the coast of Asia. The 
poems describe the beginning of the Greek settle- 
ments there. 

7. The Dorian Migration. — This state of things 
was greatly changed shortly before trustworthy history 
begins. For the Dorians, hitherto a small people of 
northern Greece, invaded Peloponnesos and occupied 
its chief cities. From this time the Dorian cities, 
first Argos and then Sparta, were the leading 
powers of Peloponnesos, and for a time of all Greece. 
The greatness of Athens came later ; and for some 
ages the cities of old Greece were less great and 
flourishing than many of the Greek colonies, though 
the greatness of the cities in old Greece, when it came 
lasted longer. 

8. The Greek Commonwealths. — When the 
kingly power was abolished in the Greek cities, they 



i8 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

became republics or commonwealths. Sometimes 
a priest or magistrate kept the title of king, but he was 
no longer the head of the state. But at Sparta the 
kings went on, two kings at a time, the kingdom in 
each line going on from father to son. But though 
the Spartan kings were held in high honour, and com- 
manded armies and had various powers of other 
kinds, still they ceased, step by step, to be the real 
heads of the state. This doing away with kings was 
one of the chief things which distinguished the Greeks 
in Greece from their neighbours and kinsfolk; for 
in Macedonia and Epeiros, and in some of the Greek 
islands and colonies, kings went on after they had 
come to an end in Greece itself. 

9. Aristocracies and Democracies. — The 
governments which were now formed were for the 
most part aristocracies or oligarchies, that is to 
say, governments in which the power is in the hands 
of some particular class of the people. Such a 
government, if it ruled well, the Greeks called aris- 
tocracy or government of the best; and, if it ruled 
badly, an oligarchy or government of the few. The 
aristocracy or oligarchy was commonly made up of 
the old citizens, who did not allow those who settled 
afterwards to have the same rights as themselves. 
Some cities always remained oligarchies ; but in 
others the new citizens or commons were able to 
get the power placed in the hands of all citizens 
without distinction. This was called a democracy 
or government of the whole people. And some- 
times, when strifes of this kind were going on in a 
city, a cunning man was able, most commonly by 
pretending to help the commons, to get all power 
into his own hands. Such an one was called a Tyrant, 
that is to say, one who had got the power, or more 
than the power, of a king, in a state where there was 
no king by law. The Greeks held that monarchy, 
where the chief power is in the hands of a king, 



II.] FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, 19 

aristocracy, where it is in the hands of part only 
of the people, and democracy, where it is in the 
hands of the whole people, were all lawful forms of 
government. But tyranny was always held to be 
something in itself, and it was thought a good work 
to kill a tyrant. Of the aristocratic states Sparta was 
the greatest ; for, though Sparta had kings, yet the 
chief power was in the hands of a few senators and 
magistrates, who were chosen from the old citizens 
only. Athens, on the other hand, was the great ex- 
ample of a democracy where every free citizen had 
a vote in the assembly which chose magistrates and 
made war and peace. 

10. Ruling and Subject Cities. — It must be 
remembered that every Greek city was, or wished to 
be, an independent state, with the power of making 
war and peace. But very often one city bore rule over 
other cities, which were commonly eager to cast off 
its yoke if they could. Thus Sparta ruled over a 
large part of Peloponnesos, having many smaller towns 
as her subjects. In Attica, on the other hand, the 
free citizens of all the towns had equal rights wdth 
those who lived in Athens. But Athens too, in after 
times, begai> to make subjects in other parts of 
Greece. 

11. The Greek Nation. — As the Greeks were 
thus divided into many separate commonwealths^ and 
scattered over distant parts of the world, they did not 
form one nation in the sense in which the great 
kingdoms and commonwealths of modern Europe do. 
Yet there was much to bind all Greeks everywhere 
together, and to make them feel themselves one 
people as compared with the rest of the world. 
They spoke one language ; for, though the Greek 
tongue was not spoken everywhere in exactly the same 
way, yet all Greeks everywhere could understand one 
another. They worshipped the same gods ; there were 
common games in honour of those gods, in which every 



20 HIS TOR V OF E UROPE, [chap. 

Greek, and none but Greeks, might take a part ; and 
all Greeks all over the world had many customs in 
common. They had a common possession in the 
songs of Homer and other poets ; and they gradu- 
ally began to feel that they were above other nations 
in literature and art. Thus the distinction between 
Greeks and barbarians grew wider ; and, though the 
Greeks were always fighting against one another, yet 
it was commonly thought shameful to let any Greeks 
fall under the power of barbarians. At last, towards 
the beginning of the fifth century before Christ, the 
Greeks of old Greece were driven to act together as 
they had never done before when their country was 
invaded by a barbarian king. 

12. The Persian Wars. — We have said that the 
Greek colonies were not able to keep their freedom 
so long as the cities of old Greece. This was first 
shown in the case of the Greeks on the east coast 
of the ^gaean. In the course of the sixth century be- 
fore Christ, Croesus, king of Lydia, conquered the 
Greek cities in his neighbourhood. The Lydian king- 
dom was soon after conquered by Cyrus, king of 
Persia, and now the Persians got possession of the 
Greek cities in Asia. Thus the two great branches 
of the Aryan family, eastern and western, which had 
been so long parted, now met again as enemies ; for 
the Persians were really kinsfolk of the Greeks, though 
neither Greeks nor Persians knew of it. The first city 
of old Greece which had any war with the Persians 
was Athens. Athens was now a democracy, and had 
lately driven out its Tyrant, Hippias the son of Pei- 
sistratos. The Greeks of Asia and Cyprus now 
tried to throw off the Persian yoke ; the Athenians 
gave them help, and so made the Persian kings 
their enemies. In 490 B.C., the Persian king Darius 
sent an array against Athens, which the Athenians, 
under Miltiades, defeated at Marathon, with no 
help except from the little city of Plataia. In 480 



[I.] PERSIAN AND PELOPONNESIAN WARS, 21 

B.C., Xerxes, the son of Darius, himself came into 
Greece with a much greater force by sea and land. 
All the lands through which he passed in Thrace and 
Macedonia submitted to him, and so did a great part 
of Greece itself. But Athens, Sparta, and many other 
Greek cities, withstood the Persians manfully both 
by sea and land. Then were fought the batdes of 
Thermopylai, where Leonidas, the Spartan king, 
was killed ; of Salamis, w^here we hear of the famous 
Athenian Themistokles, of Plataia, and of My- 
kal6. The Persians were thus driven out of Greece 
for ever, and for a while also out of all the lands 
round the ^gasan, till the quarrels of the Greeks 
allowed the barbarians again to get power at their 
cost. 

13. The Peloponnesian War. — This came 
about through a quarrel between Athens and Sparta. 
Athens was now stronger by sea than any other 
Greek city ; and her ships had done most to win the 
battle of Salamis. Therefore, when the Persians were 
driven out of Greece, many of the Greek islands and 
sea-faring towns in Thrace and Asia made an alliance 
with Athens at their head, in order to keep the 
Persians out of all Greek lands everywhere. But 
step by step Athens changed from being merely the 
head of all these cities to being their mistress, and she 
began to treat her allies as subjects. This was the 
time when Athens, under her great leader Perikles, 
was at the height of her glory, when her great tem- 
ples were built, and the plays of her great poets 
were acted in her theatres. But this greatness of 
Athens raised up jealousy and hatred against her, 
and quarrels arose between her and the cities which 
were allied with Sparta, especially with Corinth and 
Thebes. Thus in 431 b.c. there broke out a war 
between Sparta and her allies on one side, and Athens 
and her allies and subjects on the other. As nearly 
all the Peloponnesian states were joined together 



22 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

against Athens, this war is called the Peloponnesian 
War. With a short interval of peace this war went 
on for twenty-seven years by land and by sea. In 
415 B.C. Athens attacked Syracuse in Sicily, on 
which the Spartans helped the Syracusans, and the 
Athenian enterprise came to nothing. Then the 
allies of Athens began to revolt, and the Persians 
began to step in again. At last, in 404 B.C., Athens 
had to surrender to the Spartan Lysandros. She 
now lost all her dominion over other cities, and had 
to change her democracy for an oligarchy of Thirty. 
But in the very next year Athens got back her free- 
dom, though not her old dominion. 

14. Greek Writers and Philosophers. — Dur- 
ing the Peloponnesian war we first begin to get the 
help of historians who lived at the time, and who 
sometimes had themselves a share in the events which 
they wrote about. The history of the Persian war 
was written by Herodotus, who had talked with 
men who had themselves seen what he records. But 
the history of the early part of the Peloponnesian 
war was written by Thucydides, v/ho not only 
lived at the time, but himself bore a part in the war. 
And the history of the latter part of the Peloponnesian 
war, and of the wars which follow, was written by 
Xenophon, who also had a hand in much that he 
wrote about. He served along with many other 
Greeks, w^ho were not sent by any Greek city but 
served for pay, in an attempt of the Persian prince 
Cyrus to make himself king instead of his brother 
Artaxerxes. This attempt failed ; but the return 
of the Greeks who helped Cyrus is very famous by the 
name of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 
Xenophon was the pupil of the philosopher So- 
krates, who wrote nothing, but who made a great 
name by his private talk, and was at last put to 
death by the Athenians. The time of the Pelopon- 
nesian war was also the time of the great dramatic 



II.] THEBES AND MACEDONIA, 23 

poets of Athens, iEschylus, Sophokles, Euri- 
pides, and Aristophanes, 

15. Sparta and Thebes.— Sparta was now at 
the head of Greece, and her rule was far harder than 
the rule of Athens had ever been ; so wars were soon 
stirred up against her. The first was with her old 
enemy Athens, helped by her old allies Corinth and 
Thebes. The Persians helped first one side and then 
the other, and this war was ended by the Peace of 
Antalkidas, by which all the Greek cities of Asia 
were once more given up to the Persian king. Sparta 
was now more powerful than ever, and treacherously 
seized the citadel of Thebes in time of peace. But 
the Thebans presently got their freedom again, and 
under two great leaders Pelopidas and Epa- 
meinondas, Thebes became for a while the chief 
city of Greece. Epameinondas even invaded Pelo- 
ponnesos and founded two new cities, Messene 
and Megalopolis. He was killed in the battle of 
Mantineia in 362 ; and now all the chief cities 
were so weakened by this endless fighting that another 
power was ready to step in. 

16. The Rise of Macedonia. — The people of 
Macedonia, the country to the north-east of 
Greece, were no doubt akin to the Greeks, but they 
were counted as barbarians. But their kings were 
Greeks from Argos, and they did much to bring in 
Greek ways among their people. The time now came 
when Macedonia was to meddle in Greek affairs, to 
be acknowledged as a Greek state, and to win the 
chief power in Greece, such as Sparta and other cities 
had held at different times. The Spartans themselves 
opened a way for the Macedonian kings by de- 
stroying a league which the Greek city of Olynthos 
in their neighbourhood had begun to form, and which 
would have been a great check on their power. By 
this time Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, were all weak- 
ened by their wars, and Macedonia was ruled by a 



24 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

very able and enterprising king called Philip. He 
first stepped in by professing to defend the temple 
of Apollo at Delphoi which had been robbed by the 
Phokians. Then he had wars with the Athenians 
and Thebans, whom he overthrew in the battle of 
Chaironeia in T^-^i^^ and after that he was acknow- 
ledged as chief captain of Greece to make war upon 
Persia. But just as he was setting out, he was 
murdered by one of his own subjects. This was 
the time of the great Greek orators, and it was in 
calling on the Athenians to war against Philip that 
Demosthenes, the greatest of them, won his fame. 

17. Alexander the Great. — The war against 
Persia, which Philip had designed, was carried out by 
his son Alexander. He gave out that he wished to 
revenge the wrongs which the old Persian kings had 
done to Macedonia and Greece. In 334 he set forth, 
and in three years he conquered the Persian empire; 
winning the three great battles of Granikos, Issos, 
and Arbela. He went exploring and conquering as 
far as India, and in 323 he died at Babylon, having 
never come back to Macedonia or Greece. Alexander 
was the greatest of all conquerors, and his conquests 
carried the Greek tongue and Greek art and manners 
over a large part of the world. His great dominion 
could not hold together ; but, when it was divided 
among his generals, the Macedonian kings every- 
where made Greek the chief language of their 
dominions, and founded Greek cities everywhere. 
Thus Alexandria in Egypt, founded by Alexander 
himself, Antioch in Syria, and other cities founded 
by his successors, were reckoned amongst the greatest 
Greek cities. 

18. The Successors of Alexander. — Of the 
Macedonian kingdoms which arose out of the divi- 
sion of the empire of Alexander, the greatest was the 
kingdom of Seleukos and his descendants. This at 
one time stretched from the ^gaean to India, but it 



II.] ALEXANDER AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 25 

afterwards shrank up into a mere kingdom of Syria. 
But Greece had more to do with the kings of Egypt, 
the Ptolemies, who were great patrons of Greek 
hterature in their own capital of Alexandria, and who 
for a good while held several islands and other points 
in the ^gsean. The kings of Pergamos, who were 
also great patrons of literature, had also much to do 
with Greek affairs, and the immediate neighbours 
the kings who ruled in Macedonia itself, had more 
still. These w^ere the descendants of Antigonos, 
one of Alexander's generals, and his son Deme- 
trios called Poliorketes or the Besieger. This 
dynasty began about 294, after a time of great con- 
fusion. Epeiros began to be a great power under its 
king Pyrrhos, who died in 272. The Macedonian 
kings now held Thessaly and other parts of northern 
Greece almost as parts of their own kingdom, and 
there were many other Greek cities in which they 
had garrisons, or which were ruled by tyrants under 
their influence. 

19. The Achaian and -ffitolian Leagues. — In 
the later times of Grecian history the chief power 
was in quite other hands from those in which it was 
in the times of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. 
Athens and Thebes were now of very little account ; 
Sparta looked up a good deal under her kings Agis 
and Kleomenes, but the chief states of Greece in 
this later time \vere the tW'O leagues of Achaia and 
i^tolia. The Achaians, who had once been so 
great, now held only the cities on the north coast of 
Peloponnesos, and it was among them that the league 
began. The Greek cities had now found that they 
could not withstand the Macedonian kings as long as 
each city stood quite by itself, so they began to join 
together in leagues or confederations. That is to 
say, several cities joined together, each still settling 
its own affairs at home, but all acting together as one 
state in matters of peace and war. The example 



26 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

spread so that the people of Epeiros put away their 
kings and made themselves a league of common- 
wealths, and even in Asia the cities of Lykia joined 
themselves together into a league after the Greek 
fashion and kept themselves independent. And some 
other out-lying Greek states, as the Cretan cities, the 
island of Rhodes, and the city of Byzantion, kept 
themselves independent of all the kings. In old Greece 
the business of the leagues was to preserve their 
freedom and win back that of other cities from the 
kings of Macedonia. The Achaian League began 
about 280, and grew step by step till at last it took 
in all Peloponnesos. The League, under its general 
Aratos, set free many cities from Macedonia ; yet at 
last in. 223, when the Achaians were hard pressed in 
a war with Kleomenes of Sparta, Aratos was so 
unwise as to make an alliance with Antigonos, king 
of Macedonia. After this time, the League was 
never so strong and independent as it had been 
before ; and now the Romans began to meddle with 
Greek affairs till they brought all Greece and 
Macedonia under their power. 

20. Summary. — The great value of the history 
of Greece is because it is the history of the world in 
a small space. There is no lesson which history- 
teaches us which we cannot learn from Grecian history. 
And this is mainly because in Greece everything, 
whether forms of government, literature, art, or philo- 
sophy, is all quite fresh and not borrowed from any 
other people. In all these ways Greece, though so 
small a part of the world, has influenced all the 
history of the world ever since. But Greece has 
very largely done this by influencing Rome. It is 
with Rome that the unbroken history of Europe begins, 
and of this we will go on to speak in the next chapter. 



III.] ITAL V AND ITS INHABITANTS. 27 



CHAPTER III. 

VHE GROWTH OF ROME. 

1. The Peninsula of Italy. — We have already 
said that Rome became the centre of all European 
history. The position of Rome greatly helped it in 
so doing ; for^ of the three great peninsulas, Italy is the 
central one, and Rome is nearly in the centre of Italy. 
The name Italy has not always had the same meaning. 
In this chapter it will mean the middle peninsula of 
Europe in the strictest sense, not taking in all the lands 
as far as the Alps, but only the peninsula itself What 
is now Northern Italy was not yet Italian. The 
peninsula itself is by no means so broken up by gulfs 
and promontories as Greece is, nor has it so many 
islands lying along its shores. Italy then did not 
begin to play its part in history so early as Greece did ; 
it was not so completely cut up into small states 
as Greece was, nor were its people given to a sea- 
faring and colonizing hfe like the Greeks. The 
business of Greece in the world's history was to teach 
mankind j that of Italy, through its chief city Rome, 
was to conquer mankind and to give them laws. Of 
the three great islands near Italy, Sicily alone plays 
a great part both in Greek and in Italian history. 
And the southern part of Italy, near Sicily, has a 
coast much more broken up, like a Greek coast, than 
the rest of Italy. Great things came of this difference. 

2. The Inhabitants of Italy. — The greater 
part of Italy was, when we begin to learn anything 
about it, held by a branch of the Aryan family, who 
were more closely akin to the Greeks than to any 
other of the kindred races. This race we may call 
Italians, and they may be grouped into two great 



28 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

classes, the Oscan and the Latin. The Oscans, 
including under that name the Umbrians, Sabellians, 
and other tribes, we first hear of on the Hadriatic 
side of Italy, and the Latins on the Mediterranean 
side. Besides these, in the north-west of the 
peninsula, were the Etruscans, a people of very 
doubtful origin. Some have thought that they were 
not Aryans at all, just as the Ligurians, who bor- 
dered on the peninsula to the north-west, were most 
likely not Aryan but akin to the Basques. The 
rest of what is now Northern Italy was mostly held 
by Celtic tribes, and was reckoned for a part of 
Gaul. In the extreme north-east were the Vene- 
tians, a people of uncertain origin. In Sicily were 
the Sikanians, who seem to have been akin to 
the Ligurians, and the Sikels, an Italian people 
allied to the Latins. Moreover in Southern Italy 
and in Sicily there were many Greek colonies, and 
in Sicily there were Phoenician colonies also. The 
earhest history of Italy is chiefly made up, first of 
the way in which the Oscan nations pressed both upon 
the Latins and upon the Greek colonies, and secondly 
of the way in which all came under the power of the 
one Latin city of Rome. 

3. The Beginning of Rome. — As Rome came 
in the end to be the head of Italy and the world, 
there grew up in after times many tales about the 
beginning of the city. It was said that Rome was 
founded by a man named Romulus, who was suckled 
by a wolf. Such stories are told of the founders of 
other cities, and no scholar now beUeves them, though 
they are pretty enough to read as tales. Rome really 
grew out of several towns on the hills near the Tiber, 
the oldest of which was the Latin to^vn on the Pala- 
tine. Most of the other hills were held by Latins ; 
but one, the Capitoline hill, was Sabine. As 
the hills were so near together, these towns were 
gradually made into one city. Rome grew in all ages 



III.] BEGINNINGS OF ROME. 29 

by admitting her allies or subjects to her citizen- 
ship, and we thus see that she did this from the 
beginning. But the new citizens did not always get 
their full rights all at once. Thus there grew up at 
Rome a distinction between the Patricians — that is 
the old citizens, the descendants of the first settlers 
— and the Plebeians, the descendants of those who 
came in afterwards. The struggles between the Ple- 
beians, who strove to get the same rights as the 
Patricians, and the Patricians, who wanted to keep all 
power in their own hands, make up a great part of 
the history of Rome. 

4. The Kings of Rome. — Legend says that 
there were seven kings of Rome, and gives us their 
names. We cannot be certain as to their number, and, 
though the later kings of Rome may be real persons, 
the earlier ones are certainly fabulous. But no doubt 
there were kings in Rome, and it is quite likely that, 
for some while after the two towns on the Palatine 
and Capitoline hills became one city, the king was 
chosen from each in turn. For at Rome the kingdom 
did not go from father to son, as it did in the Greek 
states. As among other Aryan states, there was beside 
the king a Senate and an .Assembly of the people. 
The people were at first only the Patricians or old 
citizens ; but, when the Plebeians had won equal rights 
with the Patricians, the Roman People meant the 
Patricians and the Plebeians both together. Under her 
later kings Rome became a powerful state. The seven 
hills were fenced in by one wall, and the city bore 
rule over all Latium. At last, about the time when 
Hippias was driven out of Athens, kingship was 
put away, because, so the story says, of the wicked- 
ness of the last king Lucius Tarquinius and his 
son. The powers of the king were given to two 
magistrates chosen for a year, who w^ere called first 
Praetors and then Consuls. They were at first 
chosen from among the Patricians only, and one of 



30 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

the great disputes between the two orders was the 
claim of the Plebeians to have one consul chosen from 
among them. 

5. The Roman Conquest of Italy. — When 
Rome had driven out her kmgs, she no longer kept 
her power over the Latins, and she was much pressed 
by the Etruscans beyond the Tiber. But the Oscan 
nations, especially the i^quians and Volscians, 
were now pressing on the Latins, and Rome and 
Latium were glad to become equal allies. For a long 
time too Rome was weakened by the quarrel between 
the Patricians and Plebeians. But at last, about B.C. 
396, the Romans gained a footing beyond the Tiber by 
taking the Etruscan city of Veil. Six years after 
this, the Gauls from beyond the Po pressed down 
into Central Italy, and Rome was taken and burned by 
them. Presently the two orders grew closer together ; 
and in 366 there was, for the first time, a Plebeian 
Consul, Lucius Sextius. From this time Rome was 
much stronger, and began to conquer Italy in good 
earnest. From 343 to 290 there were wars between the 
Romans and the Samnites, who had made themselves 
the chief power in Southern Italy, at the expense of 
botli Italians and Greeks. And, between these Sam 
nitc wars, Rome got back her old power over her kins- 
folk the Latins. In the latter part of the Samnite 
wars Rome had to fight against the Etruscans and 
Gauls as well as the Samnites ; but in the end she 
got the better of all, and by the year 282 all the 
states of Italy had become her alHes, except some of 
tiie Greek cities in the south. 

6. The Roman Dominion in Italy. — The 
dominion of Rome over her Italian Allies was of the 
same kind as when one city in Greece bore rule over 
another. The conquered city still remained a separate 
state with its own government, but it had to obey the 
Romans and follow their lead in war. But some parts 
of Italy were better off than the Allies, for the Romans 



III.] DOMINION OF ROME IN ITAL V, 31 

gave the full franchise of their own city to many of their 
neighbours in a way that the Greek cities hardly ever 
did. And others got the Latin franchise, that is, 
the rights which were left to the Latin cities on their 
conquest. These Latins could in certain cases claim 
Roman citizenship as a right, which the Italians could 
not. Thus there were three classes among the free 
inhabitants of Italy, Romans, Latins, and Italians 
or Allies ; and it was promotion for an Italian to 
become a Latin, and for a Latin to become a Roman. 

7. The War with Pyrrhos. — Now that Rome 
was mistress of Italy, she had presently to struggle 
with foreign enemies. The freedom of Greece was 
now quite crushed under Macedonia, but the Mace- 
donian conquests had made Greek arts and arms 
more famous than ever. The Greeks in Italy and Sicily, 
threatened and partly conquered by the Romans and 
Carthaginians, sought help from old Greece against 
the barbarians ; so Pyrrhos, king of Epeiros, which 
was now" reckoned as a Greek state, came over to help 
the Greek city of Taras or Tarentum against the 
Romans. As. the Romans were not used to the Greek 
manner of fighting, he defeated them in two battles, but 
in a third he was defeated himself, and he went back 
to Greece in B.C. 276, leaving the Romans to conquer 
the small part of Italy which was left. This was the 
beginning of the wars which Rome, as the head of 
Italy, now waged with other nations, and which gave 
her her great foreign dominion. 

8. The Punic Wars.— But, before Rome made 
further conquests in Europe, she had to deal with an 
enemy in Africa. The great Phoenician city of Car- 
thage now was the head of several Phoenician colonies 
on the coasts of Africa and Spain. The Carthaginians 
were a sea-faring and trading people, and they made 
settlements in Sicily and the other islands of the 
western Mediterranean, just as the other Phoenicians 
had done in Cyprus and the other eastern islands. 



32 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Rome and Carthage were now the two great powers 
of the West. Rome was strong by land, and Carthage 
by sea : Rome fought by the arms of her own citizens 
and alHes, and Carthage chiefly by hired soldiers. 
As Sicily lay between them, they soon began to quarrel 
about Sicilian affairs. Then came the Punic Wars, 
a struggle for the dominion of the West between a 
Semitic and an Aryan power. The first Punic war 
lasted from B.C. 264 to 241, when Carthage gave up to 
Ron:ie her dominions in Sicily. To make up for this, 
the Carthaginians under Hamilcar gained a great 
dominion in Spain, and in B.C. 218, the second Punic 
war began, which is also called the Hannibalian 
War, from Hamilcar's son Hannibal, the greatest 
man that Carthage ever had, and one of the greatest 
in the history of the world. He entered Italy by land, 
defeated the Romans in several battles, and persuaded 
many of their allies to revolt. But meanwhile the 
Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio con- 
quered the Carthaginian possessions in Spain, and 
carried the war into Africa. So, after many years, Han- 
nibal had to go back to defend Carthage, and he was 
defeated at Zama in B.C. 202. Carthage had to give 
up a large territory to Massinissa, king of Numidia, 
who was an ally of Rome, and had herself to become 
a dependent ally of Rome. 

9. The Roman Provinces. — These wars with 
Carthage gave Rome a new kind of dominion," namely 
the Provinces, or lands which she held out of Italy. 
While the Italian states, though bound to follow the 
lead of Rome, were still separate states, managing their 
own internal affairs, the provinces had to pay tribute 
to Rome and were put under Roman governors. 
But particular cities and districts were often left with 
the name of free allies, and they were sometimes 
rewarded with the Italian, the Latin, or even the 
Roman franchise. The first Roman Province was 
Sicily. Soon after the end of the first Punic war^ 



III.] THE ROMAN PROVINCES. 33 

Rome made new provinces of Sardinia and Corsica, 
and presently of the Carthaginian dominions in Spain. 
But some particular cities were left free. Thus Gades 
or Cadiz, the great Phoenician city on the Ocean, 
which had been a rival of Carthage and a friend of 
Rome, was always counted a free ally, and in the end 
it got full Roman citizenship. So was the Greek city 
of Massalia in Gaul, and other places here and 
there. Still, though Gades and Massalia were quite 
free as to their internal government, they would not 
have dared to make war or peace against the will 
of Rome. 

10. The Macedonian Wars. — The third great 
power in Europe, besides Rome and Carthage, was 
Macedonia, which soon got mixed up in their 
quarrels. Between the first and second Panic war, 
the Romans had a war with Illyria, and some of the 
Greek colonies on the Illyrian coast called in the 
Romans as deliverers. The Romans thus got a foot- 
ing on that side of the Hadriatic, and began to be 
looked to as friends by most of the Greek states. 
But when any people had anything to do with Rome, 
either in peace or in war, they were sure, first to 
become dependent allies, and in the end to be made 
into provinces. Thus it was with Carthage, with 
Macedonia, and with all Greece. In B.C. 215, the 
Macedonian king Philip made a league with Han- 
nibal, which of course led to a war with Rome, which 
lasted from 213 to 205. The Achaian League and 
some other of the Greek states helped Macedonia ; 
the ^tolian League helped Rome, as did King Attalos 
of Pergamos, her first ally beyond the ^gaean. This 
war led only to a slight change of frontier ; but the 
Romans now began steadily to meddle in Greek 
affairs. In B.C. 200 the Romans helped Athens 
against Macedonia, and a second war began. The 
^tolian League at first, and the Achaian League 
afterwards, helped the Romans. In 197 Philip was 



34 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

defeated at Kynoskephale, and all that part of 
Greece which had been under his dominion was de- 
clared free. Macedonia now became a dependent 
ally of Rome, and the other Greek states, though free 
in name, became really dependent. 

11. The Syrian War.^ — In Roman history one 
war and one conquest always led to another. The 
JEtolians now thought that they had not gained enough 
by their alliance with Rome ; so they asked Anti- 
ochos king of Syria to come over and attack the 
Romans in Europe. He was of the house of Seleu- 
kos ; but the great Seleukid kingdom had been cut 
short in the East about B.C. 256, by the revolt of 
the Parthians under Arsakes, who founded a 
kingdom which afterwards became the chief rival of 
Rome. But the Seleukid dominion still stretched 
beyond the Tigris, and its capital Antioch was one of 
the greatest Greek cities. But in Asia Minor the Ptole- 
mies of Egypt still held part of the south coast, and 
there were still some independent states, like the king- 
doms of Pergamos and Bithynia, and the cities of 
Herakleiaand Sinope. In this war the chief allies 
of Rome were the Achaians in Europe, and Eumenes 
of Pergamos in Asia. Antiochos was defeated in 
two battles, at Thermopylai and at Magnesia in 
Asia. Then he gave up all his lands west of Mount 
Tauros, most of which was given to Eumenes. The 
Achaians were allowed to join all Peloponnesos to their 
League, while ^tolia became a Roman dependency. . 
Rome had taken to herself the islands of Zakynthos 
and Kephallenia. But she now became really 
mistress both of Greece and of Western Asia, for her 
alliance was only a step towards subjection. 

12. The Roman Conquests in the West. 
— The wars with Carthage, Macedonia, and Syria 
made Rome the chief power throughout the Medi- 
terranean lands. Only a small part had been brought 
under her dominion ; but there was no longer any free 



III.] If^AI^S IN EAST AND WEST. 35 

State which could meet her on equal terms. All the 
older powers, Phoenician and Greek as well as Italian, 
had become practically dependent. But Rome had 
still to establish her power over the barbarian nations 
of the West, to bring the dependent states under her 
complete dominion, and lastly, to struggle with those 
Eastern powers which now were her only rivals. The 
first work began as soon as Italy was conquered, for 
Italy was not safe without that part of Gaul which lay 
on the Italian side of the Alps. Rome was checked 
in this quarter by the Punic wars, during which 
the Gauls gave great help to Hannibal. But after the 
peace, the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul went on, 
and it was completed by B.C. 191. Meanwhile, by 
B.C. 133, when Numantia was taken, all Spain, 
except some of the wild parts in the north, was con- 
quered. Then in B.C. 125 a province was made in 
Transalpine Gaul. Here the Romans stepped in 
to help Massalia against her Gaulish neighbours. This 
led to their making conquests for themselves : and 
before long all south-eastern Gaul was won. It was 
called the Province, to distinguish it from inde- 
pendent Gaul, and part of the land is still called 
Provence. 

13. The Final Conquest of Macedonia and 
Carthage. — The second Punic and the second 
Macedonian war had changed the two rivals of Rome 
into her dependencies. But both Macedonia and 
Carthage were ready to throw off the yoke whenever 
they could. There was a third Macedonian war from 
171 to 178, when the last king Perseus was defeated 
at Pydna by Lucius ^milius PauUus. Macedonia 
was now cut up into four commonwealths ; Epeiros 
was conquered and wasted, and the Romans were 
now masters of all Greece. A revolt in Macedonia 
in 149 ended in the country being made into a pro- 
vince. Then came a war with the Achaian League, 
and in B.C. 146 Corinth was destroyed and the League 



36 HISTOR V OF EUROPE, [chap. 

was broken up. Greece was not yet made a pro- 
vince, and several Greek states were still called 
free, but all were practically subject. Meanwhile a 
third Punic war broke out, because the Romans 
abetted their allies in Africa against Carthage. In 
146 Carthage was taken and destroyed by the younger 
Scipio. Thus two of the greatest sea-faring cities of 
the world were destroyed in one year. The Romans 
now made a province of Africa out of part of the 
territory of Carthage. Massinissa of Numidia got 
another part, but the time of bondage was to come 
for Numidia also. In 106, after a war with its king 
Jugurtha, Numidia became dependent on Rome, and 
a hundred years after the fall of Carthage it became a 
subject province. 

14. Disputes at Rome. — Rome was now mis- 
tress all round the Mediterranean. The only great 
state with which she had had no war was Egypt, 
where the Ptolemies, the descendants of the first 
Ptolemy, reigned, and where Alexandria was one of 
the greatest of Greek cities. But even Egypt had 
begun to look to Rome as a protector. This great 
dominion abroad led to much corruption at home, 
for the old constitution of the one Roman city was 
not fitted for a state ruling over so great a part of 
the world. The provincials were mere subjects, 
and the allies had no voice in anything beyond their 
own internal affairs ; the Senate and People of Rome 
bore rule over both, and thus both were often greatly 
oppressed. Meanwhile the old struggles between 
patricians and plebeians had come to an end, and a 
much worse kind of quarrel, between rich and poor, 
was beginning. Those plebeians whose forefathers had 
held high magistracies were now counted as noble, as 
well as the patricians. Moreover all kinds of people, 
strangers and freedmen, that is, men who had been 
slaves, were made citizens^ Thus the Roman people 
changed greatly ; the assembly became too large, and 



A 



iil.j INTERNAL DISPUTES A T ROME. 37 

sank into a mob. Then, while many citizens were 
wretchedly poor, others held great estates of common 
land against the law. The cause of the poor was 
taken up by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 
133, and by his brother Caius in 125. They passed 
laws to stop these evils ; but their laws were never 
fully carried out, and they were themselves killed by 
those who wished to keep everything in their own 
hands. 

15. The Social War. — Another source of dis- 
pute was soon mixed up with these internal quarrels. 
The Italian aUies, who had helped Rome in all her 
conquests, began to ask for full citizenship. Caius 
Gracchus supported their claims, and afterwards Caius 
Marius. Marius had got great fame by ending the 
war with Jugurtha, and yet more by delivering Gaul 
from an invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones. 
These were people from the north, who were over- 
thrown in 102 and loi in two great battles at Aquae 
Sextiae or Aix in Transalpine, and at Vercellae in 
Cisalpine, Gaul. Marius favoured the people against 
the nobles and the Italians against both the nobles 
and the Roman mob. But in the year 90 the 
allies (in Latin, Socii) revolted, and then began the 
Social War. Most of them submitted next year, 
and became Roman citizens, but the Samnites and 
Lucanians still went on fighting. In this war much 
fame was won by Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who 
became the head of the party of the nobles. Presently 
Marius and Sulla quarrelled, and the Civil Wars of 
Rome began. The Samnites now took the Marian 
side, and both Samnites and Marians were defeated by 
Sulla under the walls of Rome in the year '^t^. The 
Samnites meant to destroy Rome, but Sulla saved her, 
and so fixed the history of the whole world. Sulla 
then took the supreme power as Perpetual Dic- 
tator, but he presently gave up his office and died 
a private man. But with this giving one man all 



i 



38 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

power the overthrow of the Roman commonwealth 
began. 

16. Wars in Asia. —Ever since the overthrow of 
Antiochos Rome had had great influence in Asia 
Minor, but she had no possessions there till in B.C. 
133 Attalos, the last king of Pergamos, left his 
dominions to the Roman people. They were the first 
province beyond the ^gsean, that of Asia. This 
brought the Roman into the neighourhood of Pontes, 
the greatest native power in those parts. Under 
its king Mithridates the Sixth or the Great, Pontos 
became very powerful, and from Z'^ to (i^) Rome had 
a war with him greater than any war since the over- 
throw of Carthage and Macedonia. While the civil 
war was going on at Rome, Mithridates won all Asia 
Minor, slew all the Romans and Italians who were 
settled there, and crossed over into Greece, In 
these wars the Roman generals were, first Sulla, then 
Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and lastly Cnseus Pom- 
peius, who was called Magnus or the Great. In 
the end the kingdom of Pontos was overthrown 
Armenia was humbled, Syria, the last fragment 
of the great Seleukid kingdom, became a Roman 
province, and Palestine became a Roman depend- 
ency. The Roman powernow reached the Euphrates, 
and Rome took the place of Greece and Macedonia 
as the champion of the West against the East. But 
this advance once more gave Rome a rival on equal 
terms in the kingdom of Parthia. In the year 54, 
a Roman army, under Marcus Licinius Crassus, 
went against Parthia, but he was utterly defeated and 
slain. 

17. The Civil War of Pompeius and 
Caesar. — Meanwhile it became more and more 
plain that one city was unfit to rule the world. 
There were constant disputes, and at last civil wars 
between the contending parties and the chief men 
of Rome. This was the time of the most famous men in 



III.] CIVIL WARS OF ROME, 39 

Roman history, such as, besides Pompeius and Crassus, 
the great orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, Marcus 
Porcius Cato, and Caius Julius Caesar. Caesar 
was a patrician, but, to serve his own purposes, he 
took up the cause of the people. In the year 58 he 
took the province of Gaul, and in about ten years he 
conquered the whole country. The Roman province 
of Gaul, instead of a small part in the south-west, 
now took in the whole land between the Pyrenees, the 
Rhine, and the Ocean. There were three chief nations 
in Gaul, the Celts in the middle, the Aquitanians 
in the south, who were akin to the Iberians, and those 
German tribes who lived west of the Rhine. Caesar 
made expeditions both into the independent Germany 
beyond the Rhine, and into the isle of Britain. But 
he made no lasting conquests in either country. All 
this greatly strengthened his power, and, while he 
was away, things at Rome got into still greater con- 
fusion. In 49 Caesar rebelled and invaded Italy. 
The great civil war now began between him and the 
armies of the Commonwealth under Pompeius. The 
war was in Greece, Spain, and Africa, and the chief 
battle was at Pharsalos in Thessaly where Pom- 
peius was defeated. He then fled to Egypt, where he 
was murdered. Caesar was now made Perpetual 
Dictator, and he was also called Imperator, that 
is General, a word which is cut short into Emperor. 
But, besides all this, he wanted to be king. Then 
many of the senators conspired, and slew him in the 
senate-house, March 15, B.C. 44. 

18. The Beginning of the Empire. — After 
Caesar's death, there was confusion for about thirteen 
years. Caesar had adopted his great-nephew Caius 
Octavius, who thus became Caius Julius Caesar 
Octavianus. He and Marcus Antonius, one 
of Caesar's generals, waged war with the friends of 
the Commonwealth, whose chiefs were two of the 
men who had killed the elder Caesar, Caius Cassius 



40 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

and Marcus Junius Brutus. Caesar, Aiitonius, 
and Marcus ^milius Lepidus were made a triufnvir- 
ate with all power in their hands. Then they oyer- 
threw Brutus and Cassius at the battle of PhiMppi 
in Macedonia, in 42. Antonius then set out against 
Parthia; but he stayed in Egypt with its queen Kleo- 
patra, the last of the Ptolemies. Then came another 
civil war, in which Antonius and Kleopatra were 
defeated by Caesar in a sea-fight at Aktion on the 
west coast of Greece, b.c. 31. Egypt now became a 
Roman province, and Caesar became master of the 
state. The Senate and People voted him all kinds of 
honours and offices ; but he took warning by the fate of 
his uncle, and did not call himself king or even dictator. 
From this time the old forms of the commonwealth 
went on, but the supreme power was always in 
the hands of one man. The chief of the State 
was called Princeps or Prince, and Imperator 
or Emperor, the title which prevailed in the end. 
Caesar also received the new title of Augustus, and 
all who reigned after him, whether of his kin or not, 
always called themselves Caesar and Augustus. But 
the first Emperor, Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, is 
known in history in a special way as Augustus 
Caesar. 

19. The Roman Empire. — The Roman state 
was thus changed from a commonwealth to a mon- 
archy. But for a long time the Emperors had no 
royal pomp, but acted simply as chief magistrates of 
the commonwealth. Each Emperor was appointed by 
a vote of the Senate, which gave him such and such 
powers. The legions were kept up as a standing army, 
and the government rested more and more on the 
will of the soldiers. . But now that all the Roman 
dominions were really subject to one man, the old 
distinctions of Romans, Latins, Italians, and Prov- 
incials gradually died out, till at last all the free 
inhabitants of the Roman Empire were declared to be 



III.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 41 

alike Romans. Rome thus changed from a city ruling 
over other lands into a mere seat of government for 
the whole empire. And a time came when the 
Emperors found that they were more wanted in cities 
nearer the frontier than they were at Rome. But 
for a long time after the empire began, no one would 
have said openly either that Rome had ceased to be 
still a commonwealth, or a ruling city. 

20. Extent of the Roman Empire. — The 
/ conquest of Egypt gave Rome all the lands round 

^A^ihe Mediterranean. Here and there a city or a 
J principahty was nominally free, but the Roman Em- 
peror was really master everywhere. The conquests 
of Pompeius and the elder Caesar had given Rome 
the Euphrates and the Rhine as frontiers, and before 
long it reached the Danube. This great dominion 
naturally fell into three parts. First there is Wes- 
tern Europe, Gaul and Spain, where the Romans 
were not only conquerors but civilizers, and where 
the Roman language and manners took root every- 
where, except in out-of-the-way corners. To these 
we may add Africa, where Caesar had restored Car- 
thage as a Roman colony. Secondly, there are the 
lands from the Hadriatic to Mount Tauros, Greece 
and Asia Minor and the neighbouring lands, where the 
Roman language and manners could not displace the 
Greek civilization which had gradually spread since the 
time of Alexander. These may be called the Greek 
provinces. Thirdly, there are the Eastern provinces, 
the lands beyond Mount Tauros, as Syria and Egypt, 
where there were a few great Greek cities, but where 
neither Greek nor Latin could drive out the old lan- 
guage and the old manners. 

21. The Julian and Claudian Emperors. — 
For nearly a hundred years the empire remained in 
the family of Augustus. That is, down to a.d. 68 all 
the Emperors were Caesars by adoption, and most 
of them were really descendants of Augustus through 



42 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

his daughter. These emperors were Tiberius, 
Caius, Claudius, Nero. All of these have left a 
bad name behind them, but Nero outdid all in 
wickedness. Under Augustus and Tiberius all the 
lands along the Danube were added to the empire, 
so that that river became the boundary like the 
Rhine and the Euphrates. Both Augustus and 
Tiberius made attempts to conquer Germany, which 
happily came to nothing. In the time of Augustus 
the German hero Arminius cut off a whole Roman 
army under Publius Quinctilius Varus. We English 
should remember that, if the Romans had conquered 
Germany, we should have been conquered too, as 
our forefathers were then still in their old homes 
in Northern Germany. The land where we now 
dwell, the isle of Britain, was then inhabited by a 
Celtic people, the Britons or Welsh. Britain was 
attacked by the Romans in the time of Claudius, 
and the greater part of it was gradually conquered and 
became a Roman province. But the northern part, as 
well as the neighbouring island of Ireland, was never 
conquered. Meanwhile several of the dependent 
kingdoms in Asia and Africa were made into pro- 
vinces, and in the far east the kings of Armenia 
became vassals of Rome. 

22. The Empire at its Greatest Extent. — 
After the death of Nero several Emperors were set up 
and put down in a very short time. Then came a 
long time of internal peace, under Emperors most of 
whom were very good rulers. First came the Flavian 
dynasty, that of Titus Flavius Vespasianus 
and his sons Titus and Domitian, of whom the 
last was the only thoroughly bad ruler of this time. 
Under Vespasian the Jews, who had revolted in the 
time of Nero, were conquered again, and Jerusalem 
was destroyed. After Domitian, from 96 to 180, ruled 
those who are called the five Good Emperors, 
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and 






III.] GREATEST EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE, 43 




44 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Marcus Aurelius. These formed an artificial 
family; each was succeeded, not by a real, but by an 
adopted son. All this time, the laws were observed 
and the senate was held in respect. It was now that 
the Empire reached its greatest extent. The Daci- 
ans, who lived north of the lower Danube, were 
subdued by Trajan, and their country was a pro- 
vince, the only great possession of Rome through 
the Danube. Trajan also had wars with the Parthi- 
ans, and he added the provinces of Armenia, Meso- 
pota^nia, and Assyria, so that the Empire reached to 
the Caspian Sea. But this great dominion was only 
for a moment ; for, as soon as Trajan was dead, his 
successor Hadrian, gave up all his eastern conquests. 
Thus under Trajan the Roman Empire was greater 
than it ever was before or after. Before long, Rome 
had to think more of defending what she had already 
got than of making any fresh conquests. 

23. Summary. — Thus it was that Rome became 
the mistress of all that was then the civilized world. 
First, the settlements on the neighbouring hills were 
joined into one city. Then that city became the head, 
first of Latium and then of all Italy. Then all the 
lands round the Mediterranean became, first de- 
pendencies and then provinces, of Rome ; and lastly, 
the inhabitants of those provinces became Roman 
citizens. Meanwhile, in the internal history, first came 
the kings, then the early commonwealth with the 
disputes between patricians and plebeians; step by 
step the plebeians won equal rights with the patricians; 
then came the struggle between the rich and the poor; 
and, lastly all power came into the hands of one man, 
and the state was in truth changed from a common- 
wealth into a monarchy. Everything at Rome, in war 
and in peace, was done step by step, and for this reason 
the power of Rome was much more lasting than any 
other. Not reckoning the momentary conquests of 
Trajan in the East, the Roman Empire at its greatest 



IV.] EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE. 45 

extent took in all Europe within the Rhine and the 
Danube, together with the one province of Dacia 
beyond the Danube and the greater part of the Isle 
of Britain. In Asia it took in all the lands west of 
the Euphrates. In Africa it took in Egypt and the 
narrow slip of fertile land north of the Great Desert. 
It thus took in all the civiHzed part of the old world, 
all the old dominions and settlements of Phoenicia, 
Greece, and Macedonia. Rome was now the cham- 
pion of the West against the East, and it was only in 
the far East that she had a rival on equal terms in the 
kingdom of Parthia. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DECLINE OF ROME. 

I. Wars with the Persians and Germans. — 

The two chief enemies of Rome were now the Persians 
in the East, and the Germans in the West. After 
Trajan^s time, the Parthian power grew up again ; but 
in 226 the old Persians rose again and formed 
a national kingdom under Ardeshir or Artaxerxes, 
whose descendants were the Sassanid Kings of 
Persia. Rome and Persia were now rivals, often fight- 
ing along the frontier, but neither of them ever 
touching the real strength of the other. The warfare 
in the West was very different. From the time of 
Marcus Aurelius, the German nations began to threaten 
the Empire along the whole frontier of the Rhine and 
the Danube. This marks one of the great changes in 
the history of the world. Rome no longer advanced ; 
she could only defend her frontiers against the people 
who were soon to take her place as the leading 
people of Europe. Our own forefathers were still in 
Germany, but they lived too far off to have anything to 



46 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

do with what was now going on. The chief Teutonic 
nations with whom Rome had to strive were the 
Franks along the E.hine, and the Goths along the 
Danube. They pressed into the Empire in various 
ways, sometimes by warlike inroads, sometimes by 
serving in the Roman armies and being rewarded 
with lands. Sometimes again the Romans won great 
victories, drove back the Germans, and harried their 
lands. Still the Germans were rising and the Romans 
were sinking. Rome's day of conquest was past ; 
she was now fighting only to keep what she had 
got. 

2. Emperors chosen by the Army. — The last 
of the five good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius was 
succeeded by his own son Commodus. He was one of 
the worst Emperors, and was murdered in 192. Then 
came nearly a hundred years, up to 285, in which 
Emperors were set up and, often after a short time, 
killed by the soldiers. Sometimes two or more armies 
in different parts of the Empire each chose its own 
general, so that there were several Emperors reigning 
in different parts. But these rival Emperors did not 
found separate kingdoms. Each tried to get the whole 
Empire if he could ; and commonly one in the end 
got the better of the others, and then those who failed 
were called Tyrants. For a little while something 
like a dynasty was kept up in the family of Septimius 
Severus, who reigned from 193 to 211. It was in 
the time of his son Antoninus or Caracalla that 
all the old distinctions were swept away, and all the 
free inhabitants of the empire became Romans. After 
this many of the Emperors were what before would 
have been called barbarians, especially many wise and 
brave men from Illyria, as Decius, Claudius, Aurelian, 
and above all Diocletian. But few of them reigned 
any long time, and once, in the days of Valerian and 
his son Gallienus, from 253 to 268, so many rival 
Emperors reigned at once that they were called the 



IV.] EUROPE. 47 

Thirty Tyrants. With Diocletian, in 284, a new state 
of things begins. 

3. Diocletian and his Successors. — By this 
time men had found out that the Roman state was no 
longer a commonwealth, and, now that the provincials 
had become Roman citizens, they found out that the 
Roman state was something more than the city of 
Rome. From Diocletian's time, the Emperors, though 
they still never took the title of King, took to them- 
selves far more of kingly pomp ; and, as they were so 
often wanted nearer the frontiers, other cities than 
Rome began to be their chief dwelling-places. Dio- 
cletian's plan was to have two head Emperors, called 
Augusti, and two Caesars under them. The Em- 
pire was divided into four parts : Italy and the 
neighbouring lands, the Western, the Greek, and the 
Eastern provinces. Milan and Nikomedeia in Asia 
were to be the capitals of the two Augusti, and Trier 
or York in the West, and Antioch in the East, those 
of the two Caesars. But in 303 Diocletian abdicated, 
and long civil wars followed, till the whole Empire 
was united in 323 under Constantine, called the 
Great. 

4. The Growth of Christianity. — Constantine 
was the first Emperor who declared himself a Christ- 
ian. The Christian religion began about the same 
time as the Roman Empire, for our Lord Jesus Christ 
was born under the reign of Augustus and crucified 
under the reign of Tiberius. Since then the Christian 
religion, though often persecuted, had been gradually 
spreading. It may seem strange that the Christians 
were, as a rule, most persecuted, not under the worst 
Emperors, but under the best, such as Trajan, Marcus, 
Decius, and Diocletian himself. This was because 
the heathen religion of Rome was part of the consti- 
tution of the state, and those who refused to worship 
the gods of Rome were looked on as enemies of the 
Emperor and of the commonwealth. Hence those 



48 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Emperors who were most anxious to keep up the old 
laws of Rome were the hardest persecutors of the 
Christians. But the heathen religion had now become 
a mere affair of state, in which few men really be- 
lieved, whilst the Christians believed with all their 
hearts in what they professed. Thus Christianity was 
the growing and paganism the sinking power; and, 
as soon as the Emperors became Christians, paganism 
began to die out. 

5. Constantine and his Family. — The reign of 
Constantine is one of the great epochs in Roman 
history. It is marked by three great changes. Under 
him the Empire became, in form as well as in truth, a 
despotism resting on the army. The Senate and the 
Consuls were now mere shadows. Secondly, now 
that the Emperors had forsaken E.ome, Constantine 
founded a new capital at the old Greek city of Byzan- 
tion on the Bosporos, to which he gave the name of 
New Rome, but which has ever since been called 
Constantinople or the city of Constantine. It was 
much more easy for him both to set up his despotic 
power, and to establish the Christian religion in this 
new city, than it could have been in the Old Rome. 
Thus, while in the Old Rome paganism died out 
very slowly, the New Rome was a Christian city from 
the beginning. Moreover, Constantine reigned longer 
than any Emperor since Augustus, and the Empire 
stayed in his family as long as there were any of them 
left. But most of them were cut off by their own 
kinsfolk. Constantine died in 337 ; then the Empire 
was divided among his three sons, but was joined again 
under Constantius in 350. In his time there were several 
rival Emperors, and there were unsuccessful wars with 
the Germans and Persians. But in 361 Constantius was 
succeeded by his cousin Julian, who had been Caesar 
in Gaul, and had won back the land from the Germans. 
He now made an expedition against the Persians, in 
which he was killed in 363. He was the last of the 



IV.] GROWTH OF CHRISJUANITY, 49 

family of Constantine, and the first act of the next 
Emperor Jovian was to give up several provinces to 
Persia. 

6. Christianity the Religion of the Empire. 
— After the time of Constantme, Christianity spread 
itself over the whole Empire, and even those who 
were still pagans learned very much from its preach- 
ing. Such was the Emperor Julian, who had been 
brought up a Christian, but fell back into paganism, 
and did all he could to bring back the old worship. 
Yet Julian himself was, in his own life, one of the 
best of the Emperors. But nothing could now stop 
the growth of the new religion, and by the end of the 
century the public worship of paganism w^as forbidden. 
Christianity, in its birth an Asiatic and Semitic religion, 
had become the religion of the Roman Empire. And 
to this day Christianity is the religion of all those na- 
tions which either formed part of the Roman Empire, 
or have learned their religion and civilization from it. 
Outside these bounds Christianity has made veryUttle 
w^ay. But, as soon as the persecution stopped, the 
Christians began to dispute among themselves. Con- 
stantine and several Emperors in the fourth century 
followed the doctrines of Arius, a priest of Alexan- 
dria, which were condemned by a General Council 
of the Church, held at Nice or Nikaia in Bithynia, in 
Constantine's time. It was the Arian form of Christi- 
anity which was first adopted by most of the Teutonic 
nations. In fact, Christianity split into divisions 
answering to the great divisions of the Empire. In 
after times, the Greek and the Latin provinces split 
asunder into the Eastern and Western Churches, while 
in the further East men fell away into doctrines differ- 
ing from either. And, as at the beginning the Teutonic 
nations accepted Christianity in what was called an 
heretical shape, so in after times there arose a Teutonic 
form of Christianity, differing from either the Latin, the 
Greek, or the Eastern. 



50 HIS-WR Y OF E UROPE, [chap. 

7. The Gothic Invasions. — In the fourth century 
the Teutonic nations began really to make settlements 
within the Empire. Hitherto there had been constant 
wars along the frontiers ; but, Rome was commonly 
able to win back what she lost. Thus Constantine 
and Julian had driven back the German invaders of 
Gaul, and so did Valentinian, who, with his brother 
Valens, began to reign in 364. But now the Teutonic 
nations were pressed upon by the Huns, a Turanian 
people from i\sia, and so pushed on still faster. In 376 
the Goths were allowed to cross the Danube and 
settle in the Empire. But, being ill-treated by the 
Romans, they took to arms, and Valens was killed in a 
battle at Hadrianople. Then the Goths marched 
hither and thither, and all that could be done was to 
get them to enter the Roman service, and to give their 
Kings some Roman title. Under Theodosius the 
Great, by whom the whole Empire was again united in 
392, things got a Httle better; when he died in 395, 
the Empire was divided between his sons, Arcadius 
in the East, and Honorius in the West. Then came the 
worst time of all. Honorius lived chiefly in the strong 
fortress of Ravenna. In 410 the West-Goths, under 
Alaric, sacked Rome, but their next King Ataulf went 
into Spain, nominally as a Roman officer. This was 
really the beginning of a Gothic kingdom in Spain and 
Gaul, the first Teutonic kingdom within the Empire. 

8. End of the Empire in Italy. — Both in the 
East and in the West, the Empire stayed in the family 
of Theodosius as long as any of them w^ere left. But 
meanwhile several Tyrants or rival Emperors arose, 
and the Western provinces were lopped off one by 
one by them, while the Eastern Emperors had to keep 
on the strife with Persia. By the middle of the fifth 
century the Western Emperors had lost all real power 
out of Italy, and Emperors were set up and put down 
by the commanders of the barbarian mercenaries. 
At last in 476 this first line of Western Emperors 



IV.] THE TEUTONIC INVASIONS. 51 

came to an end. Odoacer, the chief of the mercen- 
aries, took the power into his own hands ; but the way 
in which the change was made shows how the old 
ideas still stayed in men's minds. The Roman Senate 
voted that one Emperor was enough and that the 
Western Empire should be joined again to the Eastern. 
Then the Eastern Emperor Zeno, now sole Emperor, 
gave Odoacer a commission to rule Italy as Patrician. 
Presently, in 489, Zeno, wishing to get the East-Goths 
out of the East, gave their KingTheodoric another 
commission, under which he overthrew Odoacer, and 
reigned in Italy from 493 to 526. He ruled well, and 
his power reached far beyond Italy. His dominion 
was really an independent and powerful kingdom ; 
formally he was king only of his own Goths, and ruled 
Italy as the Emperor's lieutenant. Thus the Roman 
Empire still went on under Emperors who reigned in 
the New Rome, but who had no real power in the Old. 
9. Formation of the Teutonic Kingdoms. — 
The commission given by the Emperors to Ataulf 
thus led to the beginning of the West-Gothic kingdom 
in Spain and Southern Gaul, and the like commission 
given to Theodoric led to the beginning of an East- 
Gothic kingdom in Italy and the neighbouring lands. 
Meanwhile Teutonic kingdoms were formed in other 
parts of the West. Thus the Burgundians founded 
a kingdom in South-eastern Gaul ; and in 451 there was 
a fear that all Gaul and all Europe might fall under 
the power of the Hunnish king Attila. But he was 
happily overthrown at Chalons by the Roman general 
Aetius and the West-Gothic King Theodoric, who 
must not be confounded with the great Theodoric. 
The Roman power in Gaul died out slowly, but all 
Northern Gaul came into the power of the Franks 
under their first Christian King Chlodwig or Clovis, 
who reigned from 481 to 511. The Franks now 
gradually gained the chief power both in Germany 
and in Gaul 3 but they settled only in a small part of 



52 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

each country, part keeps the Frankish name still, being 
called, the one Franken or Franconia, and the 
other France. Before this, in 429, the Vandals 
passed through Spain and Africa, and founded a king- 
dom there. All these Teutonic nations were at first 
Arians, except only the Franks; for Chlodwig was 
baptized by a Catholic Bishop. It was out of the 
Frankish kingdom that the great kingdoms of Ger- 
many and France afterwards grew. 

10. The Teutonic and Romance Lan- 
guages, — The Teutonic settlers who founded king- 
doms within the Empire were not mere destroyers. 
They were the disciples of the Romans as well as their 
conquerors. At first the Romans and Germans lived 
each according to their own law, under the rule of 
the German Kings. And, as the Germans were Chris- 
tians, they respected the churches and clergy, and those 
who were Arians gradually came over to the Cathohc 
faith. It was only under the Vandals in Africa that 
the Catholics suffered much from their Arian masters. 
And gradually in Gaul, Spain, and Italy, both Ger- 
mans and Romans came to speak such Latin as was 
then spoken. This was not the Latin of books, but 
the common Latin of the people, into which a good 
many German words crept in. Thus arose several 
of the great languages of Europe, Italian, Spanish, 
Provencal in Southern, and French in Northern, 
Gaul. All these languages are Latin, more or less 
broken up and mixed with German words and idioms. 
But outside the Empire men still kept the old Teu- 
tonic tongues, called Theotisc, Deutsch, or Dutch, 
meaning the tongue of the people, the tongue that 
could be understood. The Romans and Celts, whose 
language they did not understand, they called Welsh, 
or strangers. Of this Teutonic or Dutch tongue there 
are two great divisions, the High-Dutch, spoken by 
the Franks and other inland German nations, and the 



IV.] TEUTONIC AND ROMANCE TONGUES. 53 

Low-Dutch, spoken by the Saxons and other 
nations nearer to the shores of the Ocean. 

II. The English Conquest of Britain. — 
All these Teutonic conquests were made by land, for 
the crossing of the \'andals from Spain into Africa 
can hardly be called a conquest by sea. But the 
great conquest made by the Low-Dutch tribes was 
made by sea. This was our own conquest of Britain. 
Till the latter part of the fourth century our fore- 
fathers, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, stayed in 
their old homes in Northern Germany and had nothing 
to do with the Romans. But in the reign of Valen- 
tinian the Saxons attacked Britain by sea, but were 
driven off by Theodosius, the father of the Emperor 
of that name. As the Saxons were thus the first 
Low^-Dutch people with whom the Celts of Britain 
had anything to do, they have always called all the 
Teutonic settlers Saxons. In 410 Honorius with- 
drew the Roman troops from Britain, and the pro- 
vincials were left to themselves. So our forefathers 
soon began to settle in the land. First, in 449, the 
Jutes founded the kingdom of Kent; then came more 
Saxons, and then Angles. And, as the Angles took the 
greater part of the land, when all their tribes w^ere one 
nation with a common name, they were called Angles 
or English, and their land England. Our fore- 
fathers, step by step, drove out or slew the Britons or 
Welsh, and, in about one hundred years after their 
first coming, they had won all the eastern part of the 
island, from the Isle of Wight to the Forth. But the 
Britons still stayed in the west, and the Picts and 
Scots in the north. The EngHsh conquest of Britain 
, was very unlike the other Teutonic conquests ; for the 
English had never learned to look up to Rome, or 
serve in her armies. So they destroyed everything 
Roman, and kept their Teutonic language and heathen 
worship. When they were afterwards converted; it 



54 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

was not by the Welsh or Britons, but by a special 
mission from Rome. 

12. Summary. — Thus, in the course of the fourth 
and fifth centuries, Christianity gradually became 
the rehgion of the Roman Empire, and from thence of 
the Teutonic nations who settled in the Empire by 
land. Out of these settlements by land, those of the 
Goths, Franks, and others, the Romance nations and 
languages of modern Europe arose. Meanwhile the 
Enghsh came into Britain by sea. By these conquests 
the Western Empire was cut short, and at last what 
was left of it, namely Italy, was nominally joined 
again to the Eastern. All this while the New Rome 
or Constantinople remained the capital of the whole 
Empire, when it was united, and of the eastern part, 
when it was divided. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. 

I. The Roman Emperors at Constanti- 
nople. — Thus there was no longer an Emperor any- 
where in the West; but the Roman Empire still 
went on at Constantinople. The Emperors who 
now reigned there had no real power west of the 
Hadriatic. But they were ready, whenever they had 
a chance, to win back any of the lost provinces. 
Their dominion took in the Greek and the Eastern 
lands. Latin was still the official language, but Greek 
was now the common speech, and Constantinople was 
the chief seat of Greek learning. Thus no Teutonic 
kingdoms were formed within the Eastern Empire : 
there was much marching and setding of Teutonic, 
Slavonic, and even Turanian, nations on the northern 



v.] CONQUEST OF JUSTINIAN. 55 

frontier, by whom the Empire was often threatened 
and invaded. At the beginning of this time there was 
peace with Persia, but presently the endless wars in 
these parts began again. 

2. The Recovery of Africa and Italy. — The 
most fam.ous Emperor of this time is Justinian, who 
reigned from 527 to 565. His greatest work at home 
was causing the laws of Rome to be put into a regular 
code called the Civil Law, which has been the 
groundw^ork of the law of most part of Europe ever 
since. And he w^as able to win back a large part of 
the lost dominion of the Empire. The Vandal king- 
dom in Africa had now greatly gone down, and in 534 
Belisarius the great general of Justinian, won Africa 
back for the Empire. About the same time, the south 
of Spain was won back also. And, after the death of 
the great Theodoric, Justinian thought that Italy also 
might be won back from the East-Goths. And so it 
was, after a war which lasted from 535 to 553, first 
under Belisarius and then under N arses. Thus Jus- 
tinian reigned over both the Old and the New Rome, 
and the Empire again stretched from the Ocean to the 
Euphrates, round the greater part of the Mediterranean. 
But this great power did not last long after Justinian's 
death. For in 568 the Lombards, a Teutonic people, 
passed into Italy : from them Northern Italy is still 
called Lombardy. From this time part of Italy was 
held by the Lombards, and part by the Emperors. The 
Emperors kept the three great islands and a part of 
Southern Italy ; also Rome and Ravenna and the 
country about th'jm, and the Venetian Islands, 
w^hither men had fled in the fifth century for fear of 
the Huns. These dominions were ruled by an 
Bxarch or governor, who lived at Ravenna. Thus, 
as neither the Emperor nor his deputy lived at Rome, 
the Bishops gradually got the chief power there. 
They were called in a special way Popes, and their 
power over the whole Western Church greatly grew. 



56 



HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



[CHAP. 



v.] THE SARACENS, 57 

3. Wars with Persia. — While the Empire thus 
grew again under Justinian, the rival kingdom of Per- 
sia was also very powerful under its King Chosroes 
or Nushirvan, and under his grandson, another 
Chosroes, Persia reached the height of her power. 
Between the years 611 and 615 Chosroes overran all 
Egypt, Syria, and Asia. Presently the Emperor 
Heraclius crossed into Asia, and, in a great war 
from 620 to 625, altogether broke the Persian power 
and won back all that had been lost. But meanwhile 
the West-Goths won back the Roman province in Spain. 
And both Romans and Persians were so weakened by 
these long wars that neither of them had strength left 
to withstand an enemy whom none of them looked 
for, but which was altogether to change the face of 
the world both in Europe and Asia. 

4. The Rise of the Saracens. — We now come 
to a time when, for the first time since the destruction 
of Carthage, a Semitic people play a chief part. 
The Arabs or Saracens were now formed into 
one nation and filled with religious zeal by the teach- 
ing of Mahomet. He was born in 569 at Mecca, 
the holy city of Arabia. He taught a new rehgion, 
the third of the three Semitic religions which have 
taught men that there is but one God. He said that 
both the Jewish and Christian religion had come from 
God, but that he was sent to teach a more perfect faith 
still. In his own country he was a reformer, for he 
taught the Arabs to forsake idolatry and to make 
themselves into one nation. By his law all men every- 
where were to be given their choice of Koran, Tri- 
bute, or Sword; that is, that they were either to 
accept the teaching of his book called the Koran, to 
buy the right of practising their own religion by 
paying tribute, or else to fight against the Saracens. 
These terms have been oftered to other nations by all 
Mahometan conquerors ever since. Mahomet him- , 
self died in 632, after he had brought all Arabia 



58 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

under his own power, but before he had done much 
to subdue other lands. 

5. Conquests of the Saracens from the 
Empire. — After Mahomet's death, the chiefs of the 
Saracens were called Caliphs, that is Successors. 
They held the chief power, both spiritual and tem- 
poral, as if among the Christians the same man had 
been Pope and Emperor at once. The first three 
Caliphs were Abou-Bekr, Omar, and Othman ; 
then came Mahomet's son-in-law Ali. But many held 
that Ah ought to have succeeded at once, so that the 
power might have stayed among the Prophet's own 
children. There were great divisions about this after- 
wards ; but at first all the Saracens obeyed Abou-Bekr 
and Omar. They attacked the Roman and Persian 
dominions at once, and between 632 and 639 the 
Roman provinces of Syria and Egypt were lost to 
Christendom. These were the lands which had never 
really become either Greek or Roman, and which 
therefore easily fell away. But in the Greek lands 
west of Mount Tauros the Saracens ravaged, but 
never really conquered. Twice, in 673 and 716, they 
besieged Constantinople, but both times they were 
driven back. Of the Latin provinces, they invaded 
Africa in 647, but they could not take Carthage till 
698, and the whole country was not conquered till 
709. Next, in 710, they crossed over into Spain, 
overthrew the West-Gothic kingdom, and conquered 
the whole land, save the mountains in the north, 
where the Christians still held out. From Spain they 
crossed into Gaul and conquered the province of 
Narbonne or Septimania. This they held ,only for 
a short time, but it took more than seven hundred 
years wholly to drive them out of Spain. 

6. The Saracens in the East. — While the 
Saracens thus cut short the Roman Empire, they 
altogether conquered Persia. Between 632 and 651, 
they won the whole land; the old Persian religion 



v.] ADVANCE OF THE SARACENS. 59 

died out, and Persia gradually became a Maho- 
metan country. But, just as Syria and Egypt had 
a form of Christianity of their own, so Persia made a 
form of Mahometanism of its own, the sect which 
specially reverences Ah. After Ali's murder in 660, 
the Ommiad Caliphs reigned at Damascus, the 
Saracens still went on conquering, and there was a 
moment when one man reigned from Spain to Sind. 
But in 755 this great dominion was divided. In 750 
the Ommiad dynasty were overthrown by the Abb as - 
sides, the descendants of Mahomet's uncle Abbas, 
who moved their capital to Bagdad. But an Ommiad 
prince named Abd-al-Rahman escaped to Spam, and 
there founded a dynasty. Soon the Turks from 
beyond the Oxus began to press into the Saracen 
dominions, half as conquerors, half as disciples, just as 
the Teutons and Slaves pressed into the Eastern and 
Western Empires. And step by step the Saracenic 
dominion was cut up among Turkish dynasties, whose 
submission to the Caliph was merely nominal. 
This was nearly the same as what happened among 
the Christians ; only, as the Caliph was both spiritual 
and temporal head, we may say that he went on 
being Pope after he had ceased to be Emperor. 

7. The Growth of the Franks.— While the 
Saracens thus cut short the Empire in Asia and 
Africa, a power grew up which was to supplant the Em- 
perors at Constantinople in the West. The Franks-, 
were the chief people in Germany and Gaul. The Mer- 
wings or Kings of the House of Chlodwig had 
become weak and divided > but the Frankish power 
was renewed under the Karlings, who came from 
the Eastern or German part of the Frankish dominions, 
and ruled, first in the name of the Merowingian Kings 
as Mayors of the Palace, and afterwards as 
Kings themselves. The most famous of these mayors 
was Karl or Charles, surnamed Martel, or the 
Hammer. In his time the Saracens tried to enlarge 



6o HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

their dominion in Gaul, but they were overthrown by 
Charles in the Battle of Tours in 732, and in 755 
they were driven out of Gaul altogether. But long after 
this they made inroads both by sea and land into both 
Gaul and Italy. The Karlings became kings in 753 
when the last Merwing Chilperic was deposed and 
Pippin, the son of Charles Martel, was chosen 
King. After Pippin came his son Charles the 
Great, who began to reign in 768. Under him 
the Frankish power extended every way. He had 
stronger power over Southern Germany and Gaul, and 
he conquered the Saxons, that is the Old-Saxons 
who had stayed in Germany and had not come into 
Britain, and who were still heathens. Thus the 
Franks became the ruling people of all Germany. 
Charles had also wars with the Danes to the North, 
and with the Slaves and other nations to the East of 
Gennany, and be added Spain as far as the Ebro to 
the Frankish dominion- And he presently won a still 
higher place for himself and his nation. 

8. The new Empire of the West— All through 
the seventh century the Emperors kept their hold on 
Rome, Ravenna, and the rest of their lands in 
Italy. But in the eighth century, the greater part of this 
dominion slipped away. In 718, after a time of 
great confusion, the Empire came to Leo the 
I saurian, who beat back the Saracens in their 
second siege of Constantinople, and so saved Chris- 
tendom in the East, as Charles Martel soon after did 
in the West. In 741 came his son Constantine, 
who also fought bravely^ against the Saracens. But 
while Leo and Constantine thus strengthened the 
Empire at one end, they weakened it at the other. A 
dispute now arose about the reverence paid to 
images or pictures in churches. This the Em- 
perors and many men in the East thought idola- 
trous, and were called Iconoclasts or image-breakers. 
But in Italy men clave to their images, and the Bishops 



62 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

of Rome, the second and third Gregories, strongly 
withstood the Iconoclast Emperors. Thus the 
Imperial power in Rome grew weaker, while the 
Lombards pressed on, took Ravenna, and threat- 
ened Rome. Then the Romans and their Bishops 
called in the Franks to help them. So Pippin came, 
won back Ravenna, saved Rome, and ruled as Pa- 
trician, for men still shrank from quite throwing off 
the authority of the Emperor. Then in 774 Pippin's 
son, Charles the Great, overthrew the Lombard 
kingdom, and was thus master of all Italy, except the 
South. But the authority of the Emperors at Con- 
stantinople was not formally thrown off till the year 
800. Eirene, the mother of Constantine the Sixth, 
the last of the Isaurians, had deposed and blinded 
her son and reigned in his stead. But in the West 
men said that a woman could not be Caesar and 
Augustus, and that the Old Rome had a better 
right than the New to choose the Roman Emperor. 
So the Romans would not acknowledge Eirene, but 
chose their Patrician Charles to be Emperor, and he 
was crowned by Pope Leo and called Charles 
Augustus. 

9. The two Empires and the two Caliphates. 
— Thus there was again a separate Western Empire 
and the Emperors of the East and of the West each 
claimed to be the only true Emperor. Besides their 
dominion beyond the Hadriatic, the Eastern Emperors 
still kept Sicily and part of Southern Italy. The 
Western Empire, under Charles the Great, took in the 
rest of Italy, with Germany, Gaul, and part of Spain. 
And now each Empire begins to be attached to a par- 
ticular nation. The Western Empire now becomes 
German, and the Eastern Empire becomes Greek ; 
for the dominions of the Eastern Emperors now answer 
nearly to those parts of Europe and Asia where 
Greek was the chief language. In these lands Greek 
was the one language for all purposes, while in the West 



v.] THE EMPIRES AND THE CALIPHATES. 63 

men mostly spoke German and wrote Latin. More- 
over, the division of Christendom between the Eastern 
and Western Empire answers to the division of the 
Mahometan power. The Ommiad princes in Spain 
after a while called themselves Caliphs, so that there 
was an Eastern and a Western Caliphate. These four 
were the chief states of the civilized world. Now 
we might have looked to see all Christians united 
on one side and all Mahometans on the other. 
But, owing to their divisions, each of the four 
powers was an enemy to the more distant power 
of the other religion, and a friend of the nearer 
one. The Eastern Empire was at war with the Eastern 
Caliphate, but was commonly on good terms with the 
Western. And so Charles the Great had wars with 
the Saracens in Spain, but he was on good terms with 
the Caliph of Bagdad. Beyond the two Empires 
and the two Caliphates lay the nations who were still 
only growing up, as the English and Scandinavians 
in Western Europe, the Slaves and others in Eastern 
Europe, and the Turks far away in Asia. 

10. Summary. — Thus, at the end of the fifth cen- 
tury, the Western Empire was nominally reunited to 
the Eastern, while in truth the West was cut up into 
Teutonic kingdoms. In the sixth century the Emperors 
\vho reigned at Constantinople won back much of their 
lost dominion, all Italy and Africa and part of Spain. 
But soon a great part of Italy was again conquered by 
the Lombards. In the seventh century Persia first 
threatened to destroy Rome, and then Rome to destroy 
Persia. Then the Saracens overwhelmed Persia alto- 
gether, Icpped off the Eastern and African provinces 
of Rome, and won nearly all Spain and a small part 
of Gaul. Meanwhile the Franks united all Germany 
and Gaul under their power. They were then called 
into Italy, and their King was chosen to be Emperor 
by the Old Rome, in opposition to the New. Thus 
in the ninth century there were again two Roman 



64 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Empires ; but now they had become quite separate 
states, and one was German and the other Greek. In 
like manner the Mahometan power had been broken 
into two Cahphates, and the Turks were pressing on 
into the Eastern one. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FOUNDATION OF THE EUROPEAN NATIONS. 

I. The Prankish Empire and its Divisions. 
— Thus a German King became Roman Emperor 
of the West, and ruled over many lands over which 
the earlier Emperors had not ruled. All Africa and 
most part of Spain had been cut away; part of Italy 
belonged to the other Empire ; but all Germany was 
now part of the Western Empire. But an Emperor 
who was a German King was very unlike an Emperor 
who reigned at Rome or at Constantinople. And 
only a man like Charles the Great could keep so 
great a dominion together. After the reign of his 
son Lewis the Pious, from 814 to 839, the great 
Frankish Empire was divided among Charles's grand- 
sons. One was to be Emperor, and the others 
to be Kings under him. But they were always quarrel- 
ling and seizing each other's kingdoms. At last, in 
884, nearly all the Empire of Charles the Great 
was joined together under Charles the Fat. But 
in 887 all his kingdoms deposed him, and chose 
separate Kings. Out of this division of the Empire the 
chief continental states of Western Europe gradually 
arose. At first there were four kingdoms ; that of the 
East-Franks, which grew into the kingdom of 
Germany ; that of the West-Franks, which grew 
into the kingdom of France, and the kingdoms of 
Italy and Burgundy. 



VI.] BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH KINGDOM. 65 

2. The Western Kingdom or France. — Till 
the ninth century there was nothing at all like the 
modern kingdom of France. But in the division of 
the Empire among the sons of Lewis, his son Charles 
the Bald got a kingdom which was something 
like it, though it did not stretch nearly so far to 
the East. This was the kingdom of the West- Franks, 
which was called, from Charles's own name, Karol- 
ingia. So the lands on the Rhine, between the 
Eastern and Western kingdoms, which had been ruled 
by two Kings called Lothar, were called Lotharingia, 
and part of that land is still called Lothringen or 
Lorraine. By the end of the ninth century, the dukes 
and counts in the Western kingdom had grown into 
princes who paid the King only nominal homage. The 
greatest of these were the Dukes of Western 
Francia, whose capital was Paris, and who were called 

. Dukes of the French. At the division in 887 Odo 
of Paris was chosen King of the West- Franks ; and 
from 887 to 987 the kingdom was sometimes held by 
a Duke of the French at Paris, sometimes by a 
Karling reigning at Laon. But the lands south 
of the Loire took very little heed to either of them. 
At last, in 987, Hugh Capet, Duke of the 
French, was chosen King, and the crown stayed 
in his family for eight hundred years. I'hus the 
Duke of the French became King of the W^est- 
Franks. Thus too Paris became the capital of the 
kingdom. And, as the Kings at Paris got hold of 
the lands of their vassals and neighbours, the name 
of Karelin gia was forgotten, and the name of their 
duchy of France was spread over most part of 
Gaul. 

3. The Kingdom of Burgundy. — The name of 
Burgundy has many meanings, but as yet it always 
meant some part of the old Burgundian land 
in South-Eastern Gaul. Among the divisions of 
the ninth century, a Burgundian kingdom arose in 



66 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

the lands between the Rhone, the Saone, and the 
Alps, taking in the lands of Provence, Savoy, Bresse, 
Wallis, and others, and many famous cities, as Mar- 
seilles, Lyons, Vienne, Geneva, and Aries, from 
which the kingdom was sometimes called the kingdom 
of Aries. This Burgundian kingdom lasted, some- 
times under one King, sometimes under two, till 1032, 
when Burgundy ceased to be a separate kingdom 
and henceforth had the same Kings as Germany. 

4. The Kingdom of Italy. — In the division of 
the Empire, Italy was to be the special kingdom of 
the P^mperor. Several Kings of Italy were crowned 
Emperors, but after 887 they had no power out of 
Italy, and not much in it. The land was often plun- 
dered by the Saracens, and, in the latter part of the 
ninth century, the dominions of the Eastern Emperors 
in Southern Italy were greatly enlarged. After 962 
Italy had the same Kings as Germany. 

5. The Eastern Kingdom or Germany. — The 
head kingdom meanwhile was the kingdom of the 
Eastern Franks, which grew into the kingdom of 
Germany. Here the Karlings reigned till 8S7, and 
for two reigns after. The first King of the East-Franks 
after the division was Arnulf. King Odo of Paris 
became his man, and he was afterwards crowned 
Emperor at Rome. After Arnulf 's son Lewis, 
came Conrad, the first King who was not a Karling, and 
the crown came to the Saxon Kings. The first 
of them was Henry, who was chosen in 918; then 
came his son Otto the Great from 936 to 972, then 
Otto the Second and Third ; and lastly Henry the 
Second, in whom the Saxon hne ended in 1024. 
The border land of Lotharingia for a while fluctu- 
ated between the Eastern and Western kingdom ; but 
from 987, when the Dukes of Paris became Kings, 
Lotharingia became an undoubted part of Germany. 
The Eastern Kings had also wars with the Danes 
to the North, and with the Slavonic nations to the 



VI.] RESTORATION OF THE EMPIRE. 67 

North-east, the Wends, Poles, and Bohemians. But 
their worst enemies were to the South-east, where a 
Turanian people, the Magyars or Hungarians, made 
many inroads into Germany and Italy. King Henry 
had much fighting with them, and they were at last 
driven out by Otto the Great in 954. The Eastern 
kingdom was the central state of Europe, and had to 
do with all parts of the world. 

6. The Restoration of the Empire. — Up to 
this time there had been no regular succession in the 
Empire. Kings of different kingdoms had been 
Emperors ; and since 887 there was often no 
generally acknowledged Emperor at all. But now that 
Germany was the greatest of the Frankish kingdoms, 
the German Kings joined both the kingdom of Italy 
and the Roman Empire to their own kingdom. In 
951 Otto the Great was asked to come into 
Italy, and the King Berengar became his man. In 
962 he was again asked by Pope John the Twelfth 
and the Italians generally to put down Berengar 
altogether. This he did, and in 963 he was 
crowned Emperor at Rome. From this time it 
was held that whoever was chosen King in Ger- 
many had a right to be crowned King of Italy at 
Milan, and to be crowned Emperor at Rome. 
Commonly the Emperors lived in Germany, but 
they often came into Italy, and Otto the Third 
had schemes for making Rome again the real head 
of the world. Now that the German Kings were 
Emperors of the Romans, they left off calling them- 
selves Kings of the Franks ; so the tide of Rex Fran- 
corum stuck specially to the Kings of the \Vest- 
Franks. But the Eastern Francia, Franken or 
Franconia, kept its name, and was a chief duchy 
of the German kingdom. 

7. The Growth of the Kingdom of England. 
— Meanwhile most of the European nations begin 
to grow into something like their present shape. 



68 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

Thus it was with Germany, France, and Italy, and 
with other nations both in the North and in the East 1 1 
of Europe. Among these, the Teutonic tribes that had f | 
settled in Britain gradually grew into the one kingdom 
of England. In 597 the conversion of the English to 
Christianity began by the preaching of Augustine, 
who was sent by Pope Gregory the Great, and was 
the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In less than 
a hundred years all the English became Christians, 
through the teaching, partly of the Romans, partly 
of the Scots. During the sixth and seventh cen- 
turies there was much striving for the mastery 
among the Enghsh kingdoms, chiefly among the three 
greatest, those of the Northumbrians in the North, 
of the Mercians in the middle, and of the West- 
Saxons in the South-west. But between 802 and 837 
Ecgberht King of the West-Saxons brought all the 
Enghsh kingdoms and part of the Welsh under his 
power. The other kingdoms for a while kept their 
kings ; but from this time the West-Saxon King was 
the head, like the Emperor on the mainland. Then in 
the latter half of the ninth century the Danes began 
to invade England, and many of them settled in the 
eastern part. But Wessex was saved from them by our 
famous King Alfred. Then in the tenth century the 
West-Saxon Kings grew powerful again. Step by step 
they overcame the Danes ; they joined all England to 
their own kingdom, and won a supremacy over all 
Britain. Thus England became one kingdom. But 
towards the end of the tenth century the Danes came 
again, to conquer England as a whole kingdom, and 
to set a Danish king on the throne. This they at . 
last did in 1016, when the Danish King Cnut became 
King of all England. 

8. The Scandinavian Nations. — We have 
already spoken once or twice of the Danes, for the 
Teutonic nations of the north of Europe, the 
nations of the two peninsulas between the Ocean and 



VI.] ENGLAND AND SCANDINAVIA. 69 

the Baltic, now began to play a great part. In the 
northern peninsula they were the first Aryan settlers, 
and they slew or drove out the Fins and Laps, of 
whom some remain both on the extreme north and on 
the eastern side of the Baltic. In the course of the 
eighth and ninth centuries they settled down into the 
three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. 
Of these, the Swedes pressed northward and eastward, 
against the Fins and into Russia, while the Danes had 
much to do both with the Empire and with England. 
And both the Danes and the Northmen or people 
of Norway plundered and settled in many lands. 
They made conquests in Ireland and Gaul, and settled 
in the far off lands of Iceland and Greenland. Early 
in the eleventh century the Scandinavian nations 
were at the height of their power ; for Cnut reigned 
over England, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden. 
He had made a kind of Northern Empire to match 
those of the West and East ; but, when he died in 
1035, ^is great dominion was broken up. 

9. Foundation of the Duchy of Normandy. 
— One settlement of the Northmen must be more 
specially mentioned. In the ninth century they 
plundered" the coasts of Gaul, made some small 
settlements and more than once besieged Paris, 
At last, in 913, one of their chiefs, Rolf, called in 
Latin Rollo, made a greater settlement of which 
Rouen was the head. Charles the Simiple, of the 
house of the Karhngs, was then King of the West- 
Franks, and he and Robert, Duke of the French, 
agreed to give to Rolf part of the Duchy of France, 
all the land between the Seine and the Epte, if he 
would become a Christian, and hold his new lands 
in fief of the King. This, Rolf did, and both he 
and his successors greatly extended their dominion. 
As they learned to speak French, their name of North- 
men was softened into Normans, and their land was 
called the Duchy of Normandy. The Dukes of the 



70 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Normans were mostly brave and wise princes, and their 
land became one of the chief states of Gaul and 
of Europe. They commanded the great river Seine, 
so that the Dukes and Kings of the French at Paris 
were quite cut off from the sea. 

TO. The Eastern Empire and the Saracens. 
— While nations were in this way forming in the West, 
they were forming in the East also. The Eastern 
Empire itself had in some sort become a nation, now 
that it so nearly answered to the Greek-speaking parts 
of Europe and Asia. And it was now beginning to 
be further cut off from western Europe by difference 
in religion. The Iconoclast controversy ended 
under Eirene, at the end of the ninth century, in 
favour of the worshippers of images. But by this 
time other disputes had begun between the Eastern 
and Western Churches, chiefly because the Eastern 
Church would not submit to the growing claims of 
the Bishops of the Old Rome. Meanwhile Em- 
perors of various dynasties reigned, under some of 
whom the Empire went down, while under others it 
rose again. In the course of the ninth century, the 
islands of Sicily and Crete were lost, and became 
the seat of Saracen powers. But, from the end of 
the ninth century till the beginning of the eleventh, 
under the Emperors of the Macedonian dynasty, the 
power of the Eastern Empire was again greatly in- 
creased. The Byzantine dominion in Italy was greatly 
extended ; in 960 the Emperor Nikephoros 
Phokas won back Crete, and in his reign, and in 
those of John Tzimiskes and Basil the Second, 
other great conquests were made. The Saracens were 
now split up into various small states, so that the 
Emperors were able to win back Antioch and other 
places which had been lost ever since the first 
Saracen conquests. The Roman frontier now again 
reached to the Euphrates. 

II. The Slavonic Nations. — The Slavonic 



VI.] GROWTH OF THE SLAVES. 71 

nations now first begin to be of much importance. They 
form two great divisions, which had to do with the 
Eastern and the Western Empires severally. Those 
who lay to the north-west, bordering on Germany, 
got their Christianity from the Western Church, 
and became more or less connected with the German 
kingdom. Such were the Wends on the Baltic, the 
Poles, and the Bohemians. The Poles became 
Christians towards the end of the tenth century, and 
their Dukes and Kings gradually became independent 
of the Empire. But the Slaves in the South and East 
had most to do with the Eastern Empire, and they 
got their Christianity from the Eastern Church. The 
greatest of these Slavonic nations were the Russians, 
between whom and the Western Slaves lay the heathen 
Prussians and Lithuanians. To the south of the 
Poles lay Turanian nations, chiefly the Hungarians, 
who, after their defeat by Otto the Great, had settled 
down about the same time as the Poles. To the south 
of these were various Slavonic nations which had 
pressed into the Eastern Empire ever since the sixth 
century. The Bulgarians too, a Turanian people, 
were so mixed up with their Slavonic neighbours 
and subjects that they must count as Slavonic. 
With the Bulgarians and Russians the Emperors 
of the ninth and tenth centuries had much fighting. 
The Russians, who were under Scandinavian princes, 
had fleets on the Euxine, and more than once at- 
tacked Constantinople by sea. But they were de- 
feated by John Tzimiskes, and soon after they became 
Christians of the Eastern Church. The Bulgarians, 
who had founded a kingdom in Macedonia and 
North-Western Greece, were at last subdued by 
Basil the Second. The Eastern Empire had now 
again won the frontier of the Danube, and it was more 
powerful than it had ever been since the reign of 
Heraclius. But when Basil was dead, it began to go 
down again. 



72 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

12. Summary. — Thus, in the course of the ninth 
and tenth centuries, came the beginnings of the chief 
European nations. In the West, the kingdom of the 
Franks, which had been joined with the Western 
Empire under Charles the Great, split up into the four 
kingdoms of Germany, France, Italy, and Bur- 
gundy. Of these, the Western Empire was, under 
Otto the Great, joined to the kingdom of Germany, 
as also was the kingdom of Italy, and, after a while, that 
of Burgundy. In Gaul, the union of the Duchy of 
France with the Western kingdom led to the growth 
of the^nodern kingdom of France. In Britain, the 
kingdom of England was formed by the West-Saxon 
Kings joining together all the English kingdoms, and 
getting a lordship over the Scots and Welsh. In 
Scandinavia, the three kingdoms of Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway were formed, and Scandi- 
navian settlements are made in Britain, Gaul, and else- 
where, the chief of which grew into the Duchy of 
Normandy. For a moment, under Cnut, England 
and the greater part of Scandinavia were joined into 
a great Northern Empire. In the East, the Eastern 
^Empire was becoming almost wholly Greek, and in 
the tenth century its power greatly revived, and many 
lands were won back from the Saracens in Asia and 
the Bulgarians in Europe. Meanwhile many of the 
Slavonic nations, especially the Poles and Russians, 
together with their Turanian neighbours the Hun- 
garians, settled down into Christian kingdoms. In 
short, in the eleventh century, all Europe became Chris- 
tian, except the Saracens in Spain and Sicily, the Prus- 
sians and Lithuanians, and the Fins and Laps quite in 
the North. 



VII.] POPES AND EMPERORS, 73 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES. 

1. The Popes and the Emperors. — We have 
now reached the times which are called the Middle 
Ages. We have left the old Roman times behind, 
and we have not )'et come near to our own day. In 
Western Europe, the Teutonic settlements in the 
Roman provinces had formed new nations, nW lan- 
guages, and a new state of things. The Roman world 
had been changed both b>" Christian and by Teutonic 
ideas. In the West men held that the Roman Emperor 
was lord of the world ; but the Roman Emperor was 
now a German King, and the Bishop of Rome had 
become a power alongside of the Emperor. Men still 
thought that Rome must be the spiritual and temporal 
head of the world. They held that God had two 
Vicars on earth, the Emperor in temporal things, 
and the Pope in spiritual things. But the Eastern 
Empire, and the Christians under the Eastern Caliphs,^ 
never acknowledged either of them. And even in the 
West, Britain and Scandinavia never formed part of 
the Empire, and Gaul and Spain fell away from it. 
Still men believed that the Emperor and the Pope were 
the two rightful chiefs of Christendom ; only unluckily 
a great part of our history is made up of the quarrels 
between these two chiefs. As the power of the Empe- 
rors grew weaker, that of the Popes grew stronger. 
But whether the Pope or the Emperor got the better, 
it was still Rome that ruled. 

2. The Feudal Tenures. — Meanwhile new doc- 
trines grew up about the holding of land. The 
Roman Emperors had often granted lands on the 
frontier on the condition that their holders should do 
service in the wars. And the Teutonic Kings and 



74 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

chiefs had a following of companions, who fought 
for them and whom they rewarded with lands. The 
chief was the Lord, and his followers were his men. 
Now when this Roman custom of holding lands by 
military service, and this Teutonic custom of per- 
sonal faith to a lord, w^ere joined together, a new 
state of things began, The man held his lands from 
his lord as a fee or fief, for which he owed service 
in war. This way of holding lands is called feudal. 
There was nothing like this in older times, for then it 
was held that a freeman's duty was to the state or to 
lis chief, and not to any one man. But now men 
ceased to think much of the state or its chief; the 
King became the head lord in his kingdom, and not 
much more. Thus the kingdoms of Western Europe 
gradually broke up. The Dukes a.nd Counts who held 
of the King grew into princes, paying their lord a mere 
nommal homage. This happened both in the Empire 
and in France. But in France the kings won the 
dominions of their vassals bit by bit, and so became 
masters of the whole land. In Germany the princes 
grew more and more independent, till the Empire 
became a mere name. In Italy the cities grew into 
independent commonwealths, as they did also to some 
extent in Germany and Burgundy. And men came 
to look on kingship as a property rather than an 
office; so most kingdoms became more strictly heredi- 
tary. The Empire was always elective, but France 
became more strictly hereditary than any other king- 
dom. 

3. The State of the Church.— The state of the 
Church and of religion naturally differed greatly in 
the East, in the West, and in the lands under the 
Saracens. In these last the Christians were mere 
suh)jects, buying the right to practice their religion by 
the payment of tribute. They were often much op- 
pressed, but not nearly so much while the Saracens 
ruled as afterwards when the Turks came. In the 



VII,] FEUDALISM AND THE CHURCH. 75 

Eastern Empire the Emperors never lost their power 
over the Church ; and, wherever Greek was spoken, 
learning lived on among laymen as well as clergy. 
But in the West, especially after the time of the 
Karlings, learning quite died out among the laity ; very 
few of them could even write, so that much temporal 
power came into the hands of the clergy, because 
they were fitter than other men for pubhc business. 
The Bishops, Abbots, and other chief clergy had great 
estates and temporal powers, and held all kinds of 
temporal offices. In Germany the Prelates grew into 
princes like the Dukes and Counts, and everywhere 
they were chief members of the national assembly. 
Besides all this, the Popes tried to keep the clergy 
apart from other men, by forbidding them to marry, and 
forbidding them to be tried in any temporal court. 
They also said that no temporal lord might invest any 
clergyman with the symbols of his office. Out of this 
great disputes arose between the Popes and the 
Emperors. But in the East the parish clergy were 
always married, and the Emperors appointed and 
deposed the Patriarchs as they would. 

4, The Franconian Emperors. — After the 
Saxon Emperors came the Prankish or Franconian 
Emperors, so called from the Eastern Francia. 
Under Conrad, the first Emperor of this house, 
Burgundy was joined to Germany and Italy in T032. 
Then the great Emperor Henry the Third reigned 
from 1039 to 1056. He restored the royal power 
both in Germany and in Italy, and, turning out the 
bad Italian Popes who were disputing for the Pope- 
dom, appointed good German Bishops in their stead. 
His son Henry the Fourth was a child when he 
came to the kingdom. The Saxons revolted against 
him, and he had great strife with the famous Hilde- 
brand or Pope Gregory the Seventh about the 
King's right to invest Bishops. Gregory took on him to 
depose the King, and set up enemies against him. 



76 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

But in 1085 Henry drove Gregory out of Rome, and 
made a Pope of his own, Clement the Third, by whom 
he was crowned Emperor. Among Henry's enemies 
were his own sons, and when he died in 1106, he was 
at war with his son Henry the Fifth, who was after- 
wards Emperor. The Popes had set him up against 
his father ; but, when his father was dead, he did much 
the same by them as his father had done. 

5, The Swabian Emperors. — The next Em- 
peror was Lothar of Saxony, who yielded much to the 
Popes. Then in 1138 came the great House of 
Swabia or Hohenstaufen. The first Swabian 
King, Conrad the Third, never was Emperor. In his 
day arose the names of Welf and Waibling, in 
Italy called Guelf and Ghibelin. The Ghibelins 
followed the Emperor ; the Guelfs, called after Welf 
of Saxony who had rebelled against King Conrad, 
followed the Pope. Next came the great Emperor 
Frederick, called Barbarossa or the Red-beard, 
who reigned from 1152 to 1190. In Germany he 
had much strife with Duke Henry of Saxony, called 
the Lion, and the great Duchy of Saxony was broken 
up. But he is most famous for his strife with Pope 
Alexander the Third and the cities of Italy. These 
were now nearly independent, and made war and ruled 
over one another, like the cities of old Greece. The 
weaker cities called on the King to help them against 
Milan, and the strife went on till 11 83, when the 
rights of the cities were acknowledged by the Peace 
of Constanz. Then came Henry the Sixth, and then, 
after a time of confusion, his son, Frederick the 
Second, called the Wonder of the World. He was 
crowned Emperor in 1220 and reigned till 1250. 
He had long strifes with the Guelfic cities and with one 
Pope after another. In 1245 Innocent the Fourth 
professed to depose him in a Council at Lyons ; and 
in Germany he had to grant new privileges to the 
princes, so that the Imperial power was much weak- 



VII.] THE SWAB IAN EMPERORS. 77 

ened in both kingdoms. Burgundy was now slipping 
away from the Empire altogether. With Frederick 
the Second the greatness of the Western Empire came 
to an end. His son Conrad succeeded, but he never 
was Emperor, and after him came a time of confusion 
from which the Empire never recovered 

6. England and France. — Meanwhile England 
and France had much to do with each other. After 
Cnut and his sons, the Enghsh chose Edward the 
Confessor, one of the kingly house, who had spent 
his youth in Normandy. On his death in 1066, as 
there vvas no one in the kingly house fit to reign, 
they chose Earl Harold, who was the greatest man 
m the land. But William Duke of the Normans, 
called William the Conqueror, said that his 
kinsman King Edward had left him the crown. So 
he came over to England, King Harold was killed in 
the fight of Senlac or Hastings, and WiUiam was 
chosen King. Thus the same man was King of 
the English and Duke of the Normans. And, as 
there were always strifes between France and Nor- 
mandy, so, now that Normandy and England had one 
prince, these grew into strifes between France and 
England. William the Conqueror, and his sons 
William Rufus and Henry the First, had wars with 
the French Kings Philip the First and Lewis the 
Sixth. Then, in 1154 the crown of England passed to 
Henry the Second of Anjou, who had married 
Eleanor, the heiress of Aquitaine. Thus one man 
ruled from Scotland to the Pyrenees, and the King 
of the English was far more powerful in Gaul than 
his lord the King of the French. But in 1204, 
Philip Augustus of France won Normandy and 
Anjou from King John of England, and the Kings 
of England kept nothing in Gaul but Aquitaine. 
And soon France grew to the south by winning the 
county of Toulouse, so that Saint LrCwis, who 
reigned in France from 1226 to 1270, was master of 



HISTORY OF EUROPE, 



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vii.] IVAJ^S WITH THE SARACENS, 79 

the more part of Gaul, and his dominion reached to 
the Channel, the Ocean, and the Mediterranean. 
And, as his brother Charles became Count of 
Provence, the French Kings began to get power in 
the kingdom of Burgundy. 

7. Advance of the Christians in Spain. — 
All this time Christians and Mahometans were fighting 
wherever they met. The Christians now at last got 
the better of the Mahometans in Spain. The Spanish 
Caliphate was at the height of its power under Abd- 
al-rahman the Third from 912 to 961. But in 1031 
it was cut up into several small kingdoms, and the 
Christians began to win back the land. In 1084 
Alfonso the Sixth of Leon and Castile won the old 
capital of Toledo, and the Saracens in Spain called 
over the Moors from Africa to help them, which 
checked the Christians all during the twelfth century. 
But in the beginning of the thirteenth, the Christians 
again had the upper hand, and Ferdinand the 
Third, called Saint Ferdinand, who reigned from 
12 17 to 1252, won back Seville and Cordova. 
Meanwhile Portugal advanced on the West, and 
Aragon on the East ; this last state had most to do 
with the general affairs of Europe. Its kings had 
large possessions in southern Gaul, but these they lost 
early in the thirteenth century. Thus the three main 
Spanish kingdoms, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal, all 
advanced, and from 1237, the Mahometans had only 
the one kingdom of Granada. 

8. The Kingdom of Sicily. — While in Spain the 
Christian people of the land thus gained ground on 
the Saracens, foreign adventurers did the like in Sicily. 
All through the eleventh century parties of Normans 
came into Southern Italy, and under Robert Wis- 
card they won nearly all that the Eastern Emperors 
still kept. Thence, in 1062, they crossed into Sicily, 
and won the land from the Saracens. In 11 30 
Sicily became a kingdom, under King Roger, who 



8o HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

presently won all the places that either the other 
Normans or the Eastern Emperors kept in Italy, 
among them the city of Naples. The Kings of 
Sicily helped the Popes against the Emperor Frederick; 
but, on his death, Henry the Sixth claimed Sicily 
through his wife, and won it. Then came his son 
Frederick, who was afterwards the Emperor Frederick 
the Second ; under him Sicily Nourished greatly. 
When the Normans came into Sicily, the people were 
partly Christians speaking Greek, partly Mahometans 
speaking Arabic, while tlie Normans themselves spoke 
French. But from the time of Frederick Italian became 
the chief language, and the other tongues died out. 

9. The Eastern Empire and the Beginning 
of the Crusades. — But the chief wars between 
Christians and Mahometans were in the East. After 
Basil the Second, the Eastern Empire went down 
again, and was soon cut short by the Turks in Asia. 
The Caliphs of Bagdad now lost all real power. 
A third set of Caliphs in Egypt gave out that they 
were descended from Fatima, Mahomet's daugh- 
ter, which none of the other Caliphs were. Meanwhile 
various Turkish dynasties grew up in Asia, and in 1055 
began the power of the Seljuk Sultans, who ruled 
over the whole East, and conquered all the Roman 
provinces in Asia. In 1092, they founded a kingdom 
at Nikaia, and called themselves Sultans of Rome. 
For in Asia the Eastern Empire had no name but that 
of Rome. Moreover the Christians in the Holy Land, 
and the pilgrims who went from Europe, were much 
worse treated by the Turks than they had been by the 
Saracens. So the Christians of the East prayed their 
brethren in the West to help them. In 1095 Pope 
Urban the Second held a Council at Clermont 
in Auvergne, where the holy war against the infidels 
was decreed. It was called a Crusade, because 
those who went on it put a cross on their shoulders, 
to show that they were the soldiers of Christ. 



VII.] THE CRUSADES. 8i 

None of the kings of the West went on the first crusade, 
but many smaller princes and private men went, and in 
1099 they took Jerusalem, and set up a kingdom of 
which Godfrey Duke of Lower Lotharingia was the 
first king. And now that the Turks Avere weakened, 
the Emperors of the house of Komnenos, Alexios, 
John, and Manuel, won back a great part of Asia. 
Manuel even helped Pope Alexander the Third and 
the Italian cities against the Emperor Frederick. For 
he hoped even now again to join the Old Rome and 
the New. 

10. The Later Crusades and the Latin Em- 
pire in the East. — The strength of the kingdom of 
Jerusalem lay in the two orders called the Tem- 
plars and the Hospitallers or Knights of Saint John. 
These were at once monks and soldiers ; they took 
vows like monks and fought against the infidels. In 
1147, the Second Crusade was preached by Saint 
Bernard, and King Conrad and King Lewis of France 
went to the Holy Land ; but they did very little. Then 
in 1 17 1 a new Mahometan power arose in Egypt, un- 
der Joseph called Saladin, who put down the Fati- 
mites and brought Egypt again under the spiritual 
obedience of the Caliph of Bagdad. In 1187 he took 
Jerusalem and won nearly all Palestine from the Chris- 
tians. And now the West was again moved. The 
Emperor Frederick went, but he was drowned on the 
way. And in 11 90 King Philip of France and King 
Richard of England, called Coeur de Lion or Lion- 
Heart, both went. But the princes quarrelled, and 
little was done. Then in 1201 began the fourth 
crusade, which came to a strange end. The Eastern 
Empire had again fallen very low, and the princes who 
went on the crusade, Henry Dandolo, Doge or 
Duke of Venice, Baldwin Count of Flanders, and 
others, instead of going to the Holy Land, meddled 
in the revolutions of Constantinople, and in 1204 took 
the city. They set up Count Baldwin as the first of 



82 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

the Latin Emperors of Constantinople. For all 
who belonged to the Western Church were called Lat- 
ins as opposed to the Greeks. They divided as 
much of the Empire as they could, and the Venetians 
got many islands and havens. But Greek Emperors 
still reigned at Trebizond and Nikaia, and won 
back much of the land. At last in 1266, under the 
Emperor Michael Palaiologos, they got Con- 
stantinople again. 

11. Later Crusades in Palestine. — Thus the 
fourth crusade did nothing for Christendom at all. 
But in 1228 the Emperor Frederick, who claimed 
the kingdom of Jerusalem in right of his wife, really 
won the Holy City by a treaty with the Egyptian 
Sultan Kamel. He was crowned, and reigned a little 
while. But even there Pope Gregory the Ninth and 
his other enemies would not let him alone, and so all 
was lost again. In 1244, Jerusalem was taken by 
another Mahometan people, the Chorasmians, and the 
Christians have never had it since. In 1248, Saint 
Lewis of France went, and in 1270 Edward of 
England, afterwards King Edward the First. But all 
that could be done was to save a few points in Pales- 
tine for a little while. At last, in 1291, Acre, the last 
Christian possession, was lost, and, though crusades 
were often talked of, nothing more was really done. 
A Latin kingdom of Cyprus had been set up in the 
third crusade, and the Venetians became an Eastern 
power in the fourth. But these conquests were made, 
not from the Mahometans, but from the Greeks. 

12. Mock Crusades. — When the crusades had 
once begun, it was easy to turn them to other pur- 
poses. In the fourth crusade. Pope Innocent the 
Third tried to keep the crusaders from attacking 
Christians. But, before long, he and other Popes had 
crusades preached against Christians who were called 
heretics. This began with a crusade in 1208 against 
the people in the South of Gaul who were reckoned as 



VII.] MOCK CRUSADES, S5; 

heretics, and who were called Albigenses, from the 
city of Alby. Cruel wars followed, and in the end 
Toulouse was added to France. Then crusades were 
preached against any enemies of the Popes, as the 
Emperor Frederick and his son Manfred, King of 
Sicily. Pope Urban the Fourth offered the crown of 
Sicily to the Count of Provence, Charles of Anjou. 
In 1266 Charles overcame Manfred and took the 
whole kingdom of Sicily ; but in 1282 the people of 
the island of Sicily revolted, and chose Peter King of 
Aragon, Manfred's son-in-law. Thus the kingdom was 
divided ; the French kings kept the mainland and the 
Aragonese kings kept the island. Both called them- 
selves Kings of Sicily, but those on the mainland 
are better known as Kings of Naples. 

13. North-Eastern Europe. — Another kind of 
crusade was also waged against the heathens on the 
Baltic. The Prussians and Lithuanians were still 
heathens, and so were the Finnish people in Livonia 
and Esthonia. Both Russia and Poland were thus 
cut off from the sea by their heathen neighbours. The 
Kings of Denmark made conquests on those coasts, 
but their advances were checked when, about 1230, 
the Teutonic Knights, a third order of military 
monks, settled in Prussia, and another branch of the 
order in Livonia. Their wars were reckoned as 
crusades, and men from other parts went to help fliem. 
But Christians and Mahometans, both in Europe 
and Asia, were soon threatened by a more terrible 
enemy than had been seen since Attila. These were 
the Moguls or Tartars, whose power began under 
Temujin or Jenghiz Khan in 1206. They were at 
first neither Christians nor Mahometans, but, as they 
settled down in Persia and elsewhere, they gradually 
became Mahometans. One of their princes, Batou, 
pressed into Europe as far as the borders of Poland and 
Germany. But the only part of Europe where they 
settled was in Russia. The Khans at Kasan held 

8 



84 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

the Russian princes in dependence, and the Lith- 
uanians were thus able to conquer all western Russia, 
with the old capital of Kiev. Thus Russia was thrown 
back for many ages. The Moguls also in 1258 put 
an end to the Caliphate at Bagdad, though a line of 
nominal Caliphs still went on in Egypt. In one way 
the Moguls helped Christendom ; for they broke up the 
power of the Seljuk Turks, and so saved the Greek 
states at Nikaia and Trebizond. 

14. Summary. — During this time both the Em- 
pires, Eastern and Western, really came to an end. 
Their titles went on, but they were no longer the two 
great powers of Europe. The two Mahometan Caliph- 
ates also came to an end. The Western was broken 
up into small kingdoms, till only Granada was left. 
The Eastern was first broken up by the Turks, and 
then swept away by the Moguls. Thus there was no 
longer, among either Christians or Mahometans, any 
universal temporal power. Europe, and the neigh- 
bouring parts of Asia and Africa, now formed groups 
of independent states, over which tlie Emperors and 
Caliphs kept no real power. And as the Emperors 
grew weaker, the Popes grew stronger. Christendom 
grew at one end by the recovery of Spain and Sicily, 
and lost at the other end by the conquests of the 
Turks from the Eastern Empire and by the establish- 
ment of the Mogul power over Russia. Castile was 
the chief power of Spain, and France, after a strug- 
gle with the Norman and Angevin Kings of Eng- 
land, became the chief power of Gaul. In Germany 
and Italy the Imperial power was weakened, to the gain 
of the princes in Germany and of the cities in Italy. 
The kingdom of Sicily grew up and split into two. 
The Eastern Empire was broken into a crowd of small 
states, Greek and Frank, and the Eastern power of 
Venice began. On the Baltic the Teutonic Knights 
hindered the eastern growth of Denmark and in some 
sort began the power of Prussia. In short, the 



VIII.] BEGINNING OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA, 85 

thirteenth century was an age of endings and begin- 
nings throughout Europe and Asia, and in most parts 
of Europe things now began to grow into the shape 
in which they are still. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DECLINE OF THE TWO EMPIRES. 

I. The Habsburg and Liizelburg Kings. — 
After Frederick the Second the power of the Western 
Empire went down. Some kings were never crowned 
Emperors, and those who were crowned kept no real 
hold on Italy. The greater part of Burgundy was 
swallowed up by France. Even in Germany, the 
royal power grew less and less. After Conrad's 
death, from 1254 to 1273, came the Great Inter- 
regnum, when no one king was acknowledged 
everywhere. In 1256, Richard of Cornwall, brother 
of our Henry the Third, and x\lfonso of Castile, were 
both chosen kings, and Richard was crowned. But he 
lived chiefly in England. In 1274, when he died, 
Rudolf Count of Habsburg was chosen, and did 
much to bring back law and order. He gave the 
Duchy of Austria to his son Albert, who was after- 
wards King. Then the House of Austria began. 
The next King, Henry the Seventh of Liizelburg 
or Luxemburg, who reigned from 1308 to 13 13, 
was crowned Emperor at Rome, which no King since 
Frederick the Second had been, and he seemed likely to 
win back all the old power of the Empire. After him 
the Emperors had no real power in Italy. Several of 
Henry's descendants were Kings and Emperors for 
nearly a hundred years, from 1346 to 1437. They 
also became Kings of Bohemia and Hungary. Then, 
in 1437, came another Albert of Austria. Thus the 



86 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia and the Duchy 
of Austria came to be specially connected with the 
Empire. Indeed, from Albert onwards, for three 
hundred years, an Austrian prince was always chosen. 
The last Emperor who was crowned at Rome was 
Frederick the Third in 1452. 

2. The Popes and the Councils. — The Papacy 
too next began to go down as well as the Empire. 
Boniface the Eighth, who reigned from 1294 to 
1303, tried to rule like the former Popes; but the 
King of the French, Philip the Fair, sent and 
seized him, and afterwards had a creature of his own, 
Clement the Fifth, chosen. Then the Popes left 
Rome and hved till 1376 at Avignon, just outside 
the French border. In 1378 two Popes were chosen. 
Urban the Sixth and Clement the Seventh : so 
Urban lived at Rome and Clement at Avignon. In 
1409 a General Council, that is an Assembly of 
Bishops of the whole Western Church, met at Pisa 
to settle this dispute. They deposed both Popes and 
chose a third ; and then in 141 5 King Siegmund, who 
was afterwards Emperor, held a Council at Constanz, 
which got rid of all the Popes, and chose Martin 
the Fifth.- From 1431 to 1439 another Council at 
Basel tried, but in vain, to lessen the power of the 
Popes and to strengthen that of national churches. 

3. The Italian Cities. — Now that the Emperor 
had lost all real power in Italy, the land formed a 
group of separate states, like those of old Greece, 
some of them being commonwealths and some ruled 
by Princes. Some one man often made himself 
master of his own city, and perhaps of several others, 
and handed on his power to his children. But 
such men were called Lords or Tyrants. To give 
a show of right, they often got the Emperor or the 
Pope to grant them their dominions as a fief, with 
the title of Duke or Marquess. Thus many cities 
changed into principalities. At Milan the power of the 



VIII.] POPES AND COUNCILS. 87 

Viscontigraduallygrewup, and in 1395 the then King 
Wenceslaus made their dominions into the Duchy 
of Milan. The other chief state of Northern Italy 
was the ohgarchic commonwealth of Venice, which, 
besides its power in the East, gained in the fourteenth 
century a great dominion on the mainland. Genoa 
also was still a commonwealth, and powerful by sea. 
In the thirteenth century Florence became great, 
and was the chief example of a democracy. But she 
too had subject cities, and, during the great part of 
the fifteenth century, she ruled over Pisa. But in 
the fifteenth century the Medici began to gain the 
chief power, though, as under Augustus at Rome, the 
forms of the commonwealth went on. Florence was 
also the chief seat of commerce, literature and art. 
No one city ever had more great men, the famous 
poet Dante Alighieri among the foremost. 

4. The Popes and the Sicilian Kings. — Mean- 
while at the other end of Italy the two Sicilian king- 
doms went on, on the mainland and on the island. 
After the French v/ere driven out of the island, it was 
ruled by Kings of the House of Aragon, but, after the 
first King Frederick, it was of no account, and after 
a while it was joined to Aragon. In the kingdom on 
the mainland, or kingdom of Naples, there were long 
disputes as to the succession. Daring the greater 
part of the fifteenth century its crown also was held 
by Kings of the House of Aragon ; but it was 
claimed, and now and then won, by the Dukes of 
Anjou, whose claims at last passed to the Kings of 
France. Meanwhile in central Italy the Popes were 
growing up into a new temporal power. While they 
lived at Avignon, there was utter confusion at Rome, 
save when in 1347 Cola di Rienzi set up a common- 
wealth for a moment and ruled as Tribune. But 
after the Popes had come back, and had got the better 
of the Councils, they thought chiefly of enlarging their 
temporal power ; and, during all the latter part of the 



SS HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

fifteenth century, they were little more than Italian 
princes. 

5. England, France, and Scotland. — During 
the thirteenth century all the people of England had 
become united, and had won their freedom from the 
kings. Then came the reign of Edward the First, 
whose great object, like that of the old kings, was to 
join together all Britain ; and then came the long 
wars with France. The French kings were always 
trying to get Aquitaine ; and, when the enmity between 
England and Scotland began, Scotland and France 
always helped one another against England. At last the 
great war called the Hundred Years' War began 
between Edward the Third of England and the 
French king Philip of Valois. Philip was aiming 
at Aquitaine, and in return Edward claimed the crown 
of France in right of his mother. Ever since Hugh 
Capet, a male heir had never been wanting, so that men 
said that the Crown could never pass through a woman. 
Then came the great victories of Crecy in 1346 and 
Poitiers in 1356, and in 1360, by the Peace of Bre- 
tigny, Edward gave up his claim to the French 
Crown, but became independent prince of Aquitaine, 
Calais, and some other districts. But the French 
soon broke the treaty, and, before Edward died in 
1377, nearly all Aquitaine was lost, except the cities 
of Bourdeaux and Bayonne. After this there was no 
peace for a long while, but there were many truces, 
and the war went on feebly till Henry the Fifth of 
England began it again in good earnest. The French 
king Charles the Sixth was weak, or rather mad, and 
the land was full of confusion. In 1415 Henry won 
the Battle of Agincourt, and in 1420, by the Treaty 
of Troyes, it was settled that Henry should succeed 
on the death of Charles, and that the crowns of England 
and France should be for ever united. But both 
Charles and Henry died soon after ; the treaty was not 
carried out, and the war went on between Henry the 



VIII.] IVAJ^S OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 89 

Sixth of England and Charles the Seventh of 

France. At last, in 1453, the English were driven out 
of all France and Aquitaine, and kept only Calais. 

6. The Growth of France. — Notwithstanding 
these wars, France was growing all this time. 
The kings were increasing their power in their own 
dominions, they were annexing the dominions of 
their vassals, and they were winning lands beyond 
their own kingdom. In the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries the French kings got possession of most 
of the Kingdom of Burgundy. In 13 14 Philip the 
Fair got hold of the imperial city of Lyons. In 1349, 
Charles, the eldest son of King John of France, bought 
the land of Vienne, which was called the Dauphiny, 
and from that time the eldest son of the King of 
France was called the Dauphin. And in 1481 Lewis 
the Eleventh annexed Provence to France. 
Thus all the land between the JRhone and the Alps 
was swallowed up, save only Orange, which kept its 
own princes, and Avignon and Venaissin, which 
belonged to the Popes. Thus the French kingdom 
was greatly enlarged, and within the kingdom all 
the great fiefs were joined to the crown, save only 
Britanny and Flanders. 

7. Switzerland and Burgundy. — While the 
Empire was getting weaker and more divided, and while 
France was getting stronger and more united, two new 
powers arose in the border- land between them. These 
were the League of the Swiss Cantons and the Duchy 
of Burgundy. The German cities and free districts 
often made Leagues like those of old Greece, but one 
of these Leagues grew to a special importance in the 
fourteenth century. This was the League of the Three 
Lands, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, on 
the borders of Germany, Burgundy and Italy. These 
little mountain lands had kept much more of the old 
freedom than most other parts of Germany. They 
were in favour with the Swabian Emperors, but, 



90 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

when their neighbours the Counts of Habsburg be- 
came Dukes of Austria, they had to fight for their 
freedom against them. They secured it in 13 15 by 
the battle of Morgarten, in which they overthrew the 
Austrian Duke Leopold. Then the neighbouring 
cities, Luzern, Zurich, and Bern joined them, and 
they formed a League of eight Cantons called the Old 
League of High Germany. But from the land of 
Schwyz they came to be called Swiss. The League 
had still to defend itself against the Dukes of Austria 
and other enemies ; but it grew, and the Cantons 
became the chiefs of many allies and subjects. Mean- 
while the power of the Dukes of Burgundy was 
growing up. These were a branch of the French 
royal family, who first held the French Duchy of Bur- 
gundy, and gradually added to it many other fiefs, 
both of France, like the County of Flanders, and of 
the Empire, like the County of Burgundy. Thus Duke 
Philip the Good, who reigned from 14 19 to 1469, 
was, because of his border position, one of the great 
princes of Europe. His son, Charles the Bold, 
had a great rivalry with Lewis the Eleventh of 
France, and made enemies on all sides, the Con- 
federates among them. A war followed in 1476, 
in which the Confederates overthrew Duke Charles 
in two battles in the Savoyard lands, at Granson 
and Morat. Next year he was defeated and killed 
at Nancy in Lorraine. His dominion was broken up ; 
the Duchy of Burgundy was annexed to France, and 
there was no longer a great middle power between 
France and Germany. The Confederates got great 
fame and began to spread their dominion over their 
Romance neighbours. But unluckily they also took 
to serving for hire in foreign armies, especially in 
France. 

8. The Spanish Kingdoms.— Though the Ma- 
hometans in Spain were now shut up in the one 
kingdom of Granada, they kept their ground till 



VIII.] END OF THE SARACENS IN SPAIN. 91 

the end of the fifteenth century. For the Spanish king- 
doms were often at war with one another, and Aragon 
was much mixed up with the affairs of France and Italy. 
The wars between the Aragonese and the Angevin 
kings of Naples sometimes spread into Aragon itself. 
At last Castile and Aragon were united in 147 1 by the 
marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon with Isabel of 
Castile. In 1492 Granada was taken, and the Maho- 
metan power in Spain came to an end. Before long, 
all that part of the kingdom of Navarre which lay 
south of the Pyrenees was conquered. Thus the 
kings of Castile and Aragon reigned over the whole 
peninsula, except Portugal, and they were commonly 
spoken of as Kings of Spain. Spain presently grew 
to be the first power in Europe. But meanwhile 
Portugal was doing great things in another way ; 
for her princes in the fifteenth century, especially the 
Infant Don Henry, made voyages of discovery 
and settlement both in Africa and the islands in the 
Atlantic. This was the beginning of European trade 
and settlements in distant lands ; Portugal began, 
and other nations followed. In i486 the discovery 
of the Cape of Good Hope opened a still wider 
field in India and elsewhere, first for Portugal and 
afterwards for other nations. 

9. The fall of the Eastern Empire.— While 
the Mahometans were thus driven out of Western 
Europe, they were gaining ground wonderfully in the 
East. After the Greeks had won back Constantinople, 
the Empire was a mere shadow of its old self ; yet 
the Emperors of the House of Palaiologos were 
able to join to it many of the little states, Greek 
and Frank, which had arisen out of the Latin 
Conquest. And whenever the Greeks were hard 
pressed, there was always some show of uniting the 
Eastern and Western Churches. The Empire and all 
Christendom were now threatened by a more dan- 
gerous Mahometan enemy than any since the time of 



92 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

the first Saracens. These were a new race of Turks, 
the Ottomans, who began to rise to power in the latter 
part of the thirteenth century. They gradually swal- 
lowed up the Asiatic provinces of the Empire ; then in 
1343 they got a footing in Europe, and in 1361 their 
Sultan Amurath took Hadrianople and made it his 
capital. Thus Constantinople was quite hemmed in, 
and nothing was left to the Empire but some outlying 
points in Macedonia and Greece. But the Empire was 
saved for a moment by the rise of a new power in Asia, 
that of Timour, whose descendants are commonly 
called Moguls, though they were in truth rather Turks. 
He was a Mahometan of the Shiah sect, and was as 
fierce against orthodox Mahometans as against Chris- 
tians. He therefore attacked the Ottoman power in 
Asia, and took the Sultan Bajazet prisoner in 1402. He 
never crossed into Europe ; and, as a civil war followed 
among the Ottomans, the Empire got a breathing time. 
At last, in 1453, Constantinople was taken by the 
Sultan Mahomet the Conqueror ; the last Em- 
peror, Constantine Palaiologos, died fighting, 
and the Roman Empire of the East came to an end. 
Mahomet presently conquered Peloponnesos and the 
Empire of Trebizond. Thus the Turks became a great 
power in Europe, and in a manner took the place of 
the Eastern Empire. But the Venetians, the Knights 
of St. John, and other Latin powers, still kept several 
islands and points on the coasts of Greece and Asia. 

10. Russia, Poland, and Hungary. — Mean- 
while other parts of Europe had Mahometan enemies 
to deal with. Long before the Ottomans had taken 
Constantinople, they had spread their power over the 
countries to the north, as Servia and Bulgaria, 
and this brought them into the neighbourhood of 
Hungary and Poland. These last nations became 
the great bulwarks of Christendom by land, as Venice 
was by sea. In 1396, Siegmund, King of Hungary, 
the same who was afterwards Emperor, with many 



VIII.] END OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE. 93 

crusaders from the West, was overthrown by the Sultan 
Bajazet at NikopoUs. Meanwhile in 1386, Jagellon 
Duke of Lithuania had embraced Christianity along 
with his people, and had married Hedwig, Queen 
of Poland. Thus Poland and Lithuania, with the 
large part of Russia which they had conquered, 
formed a very powerful state. Jagellon's son Vlad- 
islaus was also King of Hungary. He drove 
back Sultan Amuratli for a while, but in 1444 he was 
defeated and slain at Varna. But the Turks w^ere 
kept in check by John Huniades, Prince of Trans- 
silvania and Regent of Hungary, and his son, Mat- 
thias Corvinus, who was King of Hungary, and 
who, besides the Turks, had to keep the House of 
Austria in check at the other end of his kingdom. 
Meanwhile in 1466 Poland got the better of the 
Teutonic Knights, and annexed the western part of 
Prussia. Russia, while cut short by Poland to the 
West, was held in bondage by the Moguls to the East. 
But she gradually gained strength, and at last was set 
free in 1477. But the Mahometans still kept the 
lands on the north of the Euxine, just as the Saracens 
in Spain had kept Granada. 

II. The Scandinavian Kingdoms. — In 1397 
the three Scandinavian kingdoms were all joined 
under Queen Margaret, daughter of Waldemar the 
Third of Denmark. This is called the Union of 
Calmar. Had it lasted, a very great power might 
have been founded in the North, but the union was 
often broken, and it came to an end before very long. 
Denmark had now quite sunk from its former power 
on the Baltic coasts. In 1448, under Christian the 
First, the House of Oldenburg began to reign, which 
has reigned in Denmark ever since, and in Norway 
till quite lately. All the Scandinavian kingdoms had 
many wars with the League of the Hanse Towns, 
the trading cities of Northern Germany, which had 
become a great power in the Baltic. 



94 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

12. The Revival of Learning, — During these 
centuries most of the modern languages of Europe 
came nearly to their present form. English, which 
after the Norman Conquest, had ceased to be a polite 
language, became once more in the fourteenth cen- 
tury the one language of England. In French 
there were many good writers, both in France and 
England ; but the advance of the French power in 
Southern Gaul caused the Provengal tongue to be 
thrust down to be a mere popular speech, as it is still. 
The Italian tongue came to its perfection in the latter 
part of the thirteenth century under Dante 
Alighieri. Meanwhile the learning of the older 
times was growing again. In the twelfth century 
many men studied the Latin writers, also such philo- 
sophy as was then known, and also the Roman 
law, which last study greatly helped the cause of the 
Swabian Emperors in Italy. From that time learning 
steadily grew ; but Greek was not much studied till, in 
the last days of the Eastern Empire, many learned men 
from Constantinople sought shelter in Italy, and from 
Italy the revived learning spread itself into other lands. 
And with it came a taste for the old Greek and Roman 
models in architecture and other arts. But both in 
literature and in architecture the imitation of the past 
checked original power. Many of the Popes and other 
Italian princes were great patrons of art and learning, 
which has sometimes made men forget the evils of 
their rule and the wickedness of their lives. 

13. Summary. — Thus, between the middle of the 
thirteenth and the middle of the fifteenth century, both 
Empires really came to an end. The Eastern Empire 
was swallowed up by the Turks ; the Western Empire 
lost all its power, and an Emperor was crowned at Rome 
for the last time. A great Mahometan power arose in 
South-Eastern Europe, which has ever since held several 
Christian nations in bondage. On the other hand, Spain 
got rid of the last Mahometan kingdom in Western 



IX.] BEGINNINGS OF MODERN EUROPE. 95 

Europe, and Russia set herself free from the Maho- 
metans m the North-East. The long wars between 
England and France began and ended, and France 
greatly strengthened herself by annexing the lands 
both of her vassals and of her neighbours. The two 
middle states, Burgundy and Switzerland, arose, of 
which Switzerland lasted, while Burgundy came to 
an end. In Italy most of the commonwealths fell 
under tyrants who grew into princes, and the Popes 
became mere Italian sovereigns. The Scandinavian 
kingdoms were united, though not very firmly. Poland 
grew into a great power, and shared with Hungary and 
Venice the work of defendmg Christendom against 
the Turks. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE REFORMATION AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS. 

I. Beginnings of Modern Europe. — We now 
come to Modern History, to the beginning of the 
state of things which goes on still. The great powers 
of the older time, the two Empires and the two 
Caliphates, have passed away in fact, though not 
altogether in name. We have now chiefly to do, 
neither with empires nor with nations, but with great 
royal houses, each of which had inherited or conquered 
several older kingdoms or other states. Governments 
now grew more powerful, and the disorders of the 
old times came to an end ; but in most countries 
the way in which governments grew more power- 
ful was by the princes overthrowing the old free- 
dom. Kings now began to keep standing 
armies, that is, soldiers always paid and kept 
under arms, whereas of old both princes and com- 
monwealths had called on all their people to fight 



96 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

when they were wanted. Thus the Kings were able 
to do as they pleased, and in many lands the National 
Assemblies came to an end. Moreover, three things 
now became commonly known which have changed 
the face of the world. These were printing, which 
made it much easier to gain knowledge; gun- 
powder, which brought in a new manner of war- 
fare ; and the mariner's compass, which enabled 
men to make longer voyages, and so led to the 
discovery of distant lands. It was, in short, a time 
when a new world was found out, and when the 
greatest changes were going on in the old world. 

2. The Reformation of Religion. — But, above 
all, this was the time of the greatest changes in 
religious matters. There had been movements in 
this way ever since the thirteenth century. Many 
men had taught doctrines which the Western Church 
called heretical, and many men had been burned for 
holding such doctrines. The Albigenses had been 
put down by a Crusade, and the like was done in the 
fifteenth century with the followers of John Huss in 
Bohemia. But in the sixteenth century men began 
more generally to question the received doctrines, 
especially to revolt against the powers of the Bishops 
of Rome. Both Old and New Rome had come to 
be the head cities of the Church, because they were 
the head cities of the Empire ; but now that the 
temporal power of Rome had passed away, the time 
seemed come for its spiritual power to pass away too. 
The Popes also often used their power badly, and 
greatly meddled with the rights of national govern- 
ments and churches. There were also many abuses 
in the Church which the Popes might easily have 
reformed. But, instead of this, they withstood all 
attempts at reform, whether they were made by the 
General Councils or by the governments of particular 
countries. Moreover many men thought that much 
that was taught and done was wrong in itself, and 



IX.] THE REFORMATION. 97 

had no ground in Scripture or the early Church. 
So, in the course of the sixteenth century, a large 
part of Western Europe threw off the Pope's domi- 
nion, and each nation made such changes in religion 
as it thought right. Speaking roughly, the Teutonic 
nations threw off the Pope's dominion, while the 
Romance nations clave to it. The Eastern Church 
was now hardly thought of; for the Greeks and 
their neighbours were under the Turks, and Russia 
was not yet of any account. 

3. Growth of the Spanish Power. — During 
the sixteenth century Spain was the greatest power in 
Europe. For Ferdinand held the whole Spanish 
peninsula except Portugal, with Sardinia and the 
island of Sicily; and he won the kingdom of Naples 
on the mainland. His daughter Joanna married PhiHp 
the son of Maximihan of Austria and of Mary the 
daughter of Charles the Bold. Their son Charles 
thus inherited kingdoms and duchies from each of 
his parents and grand-parents, and, besides the domi- 
nions of Ferdinand and Isabel, he held the Nether- 
lands and the county of Burgundy. In 15 19 he was 
chosen Emperor as Charles the Fifth. Thus the 
Emperor was again the most powerful prince in 
Europe, but his main power came, not from the 
Empire, but from his own dominions. Charles 
gave up his crowns in 1555, and was succeeded in 
the Empire by his brother Ferdinand ; but the chief 
power in Europe passed to Charles' son Philip the 
Second, who succeeded him in his hereditary do- 
minions. Philip reigned till 1598. In 1580 he won 
Portugal, so that the whole Spanish peninsula was 
united. But in 1639 Portugal became independent 
again, under the house of Braganza. After Philip's 
death, the power of Spain greatly went down. 
The Spanish Kings were the most bigoted and 
despotic in Europe. The Reformation was trampled 
out in Spain itself, and the attempt to do so in 



HISTORY OF EUROPE. 




IX.] CHARLES AND FRANCIS. ^ 99 

the Netherlands led to the loss of seven of those 
provinces. Moreover, the descendants of the Maho- 
metans of Granada were driven out of Spain. 

4. The Wars of Italy. — Meanwhile in Italy the 
old rivalry between the Houses of Anjou and 
Aragon grew into a greater rivalry between France 
and Spain. In 1494 Charles the Eighth of 
France marched all through Italy, won the kingdom 
of Naples, and lost it again directly. The next King, 
Lewis the Twelfth, claimed the Duchy of Milan as 
well as Naples; he took Milan, and agreed to divide 
the kingdom of Naples with Ferdinand ; but presentjy, 
in 1504, Ferdinand took it all to himself. Then in 
1508 Lewis and Ferdinand, with Pope Julius the 
becond and the Emperor-elect Maximilian, made 
the League of Cambray to despoil the Republic of 
Venice. ^ But they quarrelled among themselves, and 
Venice got back nearly all Jhat she had lost. From this 
time the war went on till 1529, first between Ferdinand 
and Lewis, and then between their successors, Charles 
in Spain and Francis the First in France. Milan 
was taken over and over agam, and at last Charles 
gave it to his son Philip. In 1525 Francis was taken 
prisoner at the battle of Pavia ; in 1527 Rome 
was sacked by the Imperial troops, and at last, in 
1529, peace was made. Next year Charles was 
crowned at Bologna both as King of Italy and as 
Emperor, since w^hich time no Emperor has been 
crowned in Italy. When Charles abdicated, his power 
in Italy passed to his son Philip of Spain. 

5. The Commonwealths of Italy. — During 
these wars the greatness of the commonwealths of 
Italy came to an end. At Florence, the Medici, who 
had grown into tyrants, were driven out and brought 
back over and over again, according to the chances 
of war. For France professed to be the ally of the 
commonwealth, while two of the Popes of the time, 
Leo the Tenth and Clement the Seventh, were 



loo HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

of the house of the Medici, and did all that they could 
for their kinsmen. When peace was made in 1529, 
Francis forsook his allies, and Florence was left alone. 
Then the Pope and the Emperor joined against her, 
and she was obliged to receive the Medici as Dukes. 
Presendy Duke Cosmo added the commonwealth of 
Siena to his dominions, and the Grand Duchy of 
Tuscany was thus made. The only commonwealths 
left now Avere Venice, Lucca, Genoa, and little San 
Marino; and Venice was now the only one which 
played any great part. She was one of the great 
bulwarks of Christendom against the Turks; and 
in 1570 the Spanish and Venetian fleets won the 
battle of Lepanto, the first great check to the 
Ottoman power. Yet Venice had to give up Cyprus, 
but she still kept Crete and several smaller islands. 

6. The Popes. — At the beginning of the six- 
teenth century the Popes meddled greatly in ^he wars 
of Italy to increase their temporal dominions or to 
provide for their kinsfolk. Some of them were men 
of most wicked lives, especially Alexander the 
Sixth, of the Spanish house of Borgia. Leo the 
Tenth got great fame as a patron of learning and art, 
but he was really little better than the others. In his 
time Martin Luther began to preach the Re- 
formation in Germany, but for a long time the Popes 
took little heed to what was going on. The Re- 
formation was never accepted by any part of Italy, 
though many men were anxious to make particular 
reforms. The Popes in the latter part of the century 
were mostly another kind of men ; fierce bigots, 
but men of good lives, and eager for what they 
thought their duty. Between 1545 and 1563 sat the 
famous Council of Trent, which reformed many 
practical evils, but fixed the Roman Catholic creed 
in so rigid a shape that there was no longer any 
hope of the Popes and the Reformers coming to 
an agreement. From this time Western Christendom 



IX.] THE GERMAN REFORMATION. loi 

was finally divided. Towards the end of the century 
the Roman Church won back no small part of the 
lands which had thrown off its obedience. This was 
chiefly done by the Jesuits, or Order of Jesus, 
founded by the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola. 

7. The Reformation in Germany. — After 
Frederick the Third, his son Maximilian took the 
new titles of Emperor-elect and King of Ger- 
many. But the German Kings were now commonly 
called Emperors, though none after Charles the Fifth 
went into Italy to be crowned. Maximilian tried to 
bring Germany into better order, and towards the 
end of his reign, in 1517, Luther began to preach 
the Reformed doctrines. Hence came great religious 
dissensions in Germany, and civil wars. Charles the 
Plfth was now chosen Emperor, and the Reformers 
were condemned in two Diets, at Worms in 152 1 
and at Speyer in 1529. But at Speyer the princes 
and cities that followed Luther protested against the 
decree, whence the name of Protestants was given 
to the Reforme«rs, first in Germany and afterwards 
elsewhere. At last, in 1555, by the Peace of Augs- 
burg, the two religions were put on a level throughout 
Germany. That is to say, each prince or city might 
establish either religion at pleasure. But this gave 
no toleration to those who differed from the religion 
of their own prince or city. Thus in Austria, where 
the people had largely become Protestant, while the 
Archdukes remained Catholic, the Catholic religion 
was brought back by the Jesuits. After the abdication 
of Charles, his brother Ferdinand, King of the Romans, 
succeeded him as Emperor-elect. The Empire was 
now almost wholly German. The chief power in Italy 
had passed to Spain, and the greater part of Burgundy 
had been swallowed up by France. 

8. The Advance of France. — The rivalry be- 
tween France and Spain, which began in the wars of 
Italy, went on between the French Kings and the two 



I02 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

branches of the House of Austria ; that is, the 
Emperors of that House and the Austrian Kings of 
Spain. In Italy the French Kings could not keep 
either Milan or Naples; but the war went on, and, 
while Francis and his son Henry the Second persecuted 
the Protestants in France, they encouraged the Pro- 
testants of Germany against the Emperor, and even 
encouraged the Turks to attack the Empire. In 
1552 France made its first conquest at the expense of 
Germany by winnmg the Three Bishopricks of Metz, 
Toul, and Verdun, which were surrounded by the 
Duchy of Lorraine. At last in 1558 peace was made 
at Cateau Cambresis; and from 1562, for about 
thirty years, the advance of France was checked by 
the religious wars. The Huguenots or French 
Protestants were followers of the French Reformer 
John Chauvin or Calvin, who settled at Geneva. 
His teaching, which went much further from the 
Roman Church than that of Luther, was followed by 
such of the Romance-speaking lands as accepted the 
Reformation, and by some parts of Germany. After 
Henry the Second, three of his sons, Francis the 
Second, Charles the Ninth, and Henry the Third, 
reigned from 1559 to 1589. Under Charles the 
Ninth in 1572, was the Massacre of Saint Bartho- 
lomew, when many of the Huguenots were slain 
in Paris. During the latter part of these wars, the 
Huguenot leader was Henry of Bourbon, King of 
Navarre, that is, of the little piece of Navarre north of 
the Pyrenees. He was next heir to the French crown 
after the sons of Henry the Second; and, when Henry 
the Third was killed, the crown came to him. But 
Paris and a great part of France would not acknow- 
ledge him till he turned Catholic in 1593. He was 
murdered in 16 to. Then came his son Lewis the 
Thirteenth, under whose minister Cardinal Riche- 
lieu the royal power was firmly established, and 
France began to take the first place in Europe. 



IX.] BEGINNING OF THE UNITED PROVINCES, 103 

9. The Revolt of the Netherlands. — Mean- 
while the power of Spain received a great blow, and 
a new commonwealth arose. The Netherlands, as 
part of the possessions of the Dukes of Burgundy, had 
passed to Philip of Spain, and his bigotry caused 
great discontents. In 1568 a revolt began under 
William of Nassau, called William the Silent. 
He was a Prince of the Empire, as having inherited 
the little principality of Orange which was now almost 
surrounded by France, and he was the chief man in 
the Netherlands. The seven northern provinces were 
now set free from Spain, and were formed in 1581 
into a federal commonwealth called the Seven 
United Provinces, of which Holland was the 
greatest. But Philip and his successors kept the 
southern provinces, where the people were mostly 
Catholics. In 1584 the Prince of Orange was murdered, 
but the war was carried on by his son Maurice, till a 
truce with Spain, which was really a peace, was made 
in 1609. The Provinces remained nominally members 
of the Empire till 1648 ; butjhey were really independ- 
ent both of the Empire and of Spain. And though 
the territory of the Dutch, as we call the people of 
the Seven Provinces in a special way, was so small, 
yet their courage and energy, especially by sea, was so 
great that, all through the seventeenth century, their 
confederation was reckoned as one of the chief powers 
of Europe. 

10. Switzerland and Savoy. — Meanwhile the 
older League at the other end of the Empire, the old 
League of High Germany, whose people were now 
called the Swiss, grew greatly after the war with 
Charles of Burgundy. They took in five new cantons, 
making in all thirteen, all German ; but they had now 
allies and subjects in the Romance-speaking lands. 
The Confederates took a great part in the Italian 
wars, and won part of Lombardy, which is now the 
canton of Ticino. But their power chiefly grew in the 



104 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

old kingdom of Burgundy. The only great princes 
there who had not fallen under the power of France 
were the Dukes of Savoy. They had lands on 
both sides of the Alps, and, from that time till now, 
their house has lost ground on the Burgundian side 
and gained it on the Italian. The Swiss had their 
own Reformation distinct from that of Germany ; its 
leader was Ulrich Zwingli of Ziirich, who began 
to preach in 15 19. Bern and Ziirich and some other 
parts accepted his teaching, but others, and the old 
Three Lands among them, remained Catholic. Mean- 
while William Farel preached at Geneva, which 
was in alliance with Bern and others cantons. The 
Dukes of Savoy, by whose dominions Geneva was 
hemmed in, often tried to seize it. But Geneva 
was helped by her alHe?, and the Dukes of Savoy 
lost all their lands north of the lake and some to 
the south, but these last were given back in 1564. 
Thus Bern and others of the Confederates and their 
allies won a dominion in the Romance lands. 
Geneva remained free, and became the dwelling-place 
of Calvin and the chief place of his teaching. From 
this time the Dukes of Savoy had mainly to do with 
Italy, In 1648 the Swiss Cantons were formally 
acknowledged as independent of the Empire. 

II. England and Scotland. — Meanwhile in our 
own island the Reformation was accepted in different 
forms both in England and in Scotland, and the two 
crowns were joined together. The latter half of the 
fifteenth century in England was full of the civil wars 
between the Houses of York and Lancaster. Henry 
the Eighth, in 1509, was the first King whose title 
was undisputed. In his time religious changes began. 
He threw off the authority of the Pope, but those who 
taught the Reformed doctrines were still burned. More 
strictly religious changes began under Edward the 
Sixth ; but his sister Mary, who married Philip of 
Spain, brought back not only the old religion, but the 



IX. 3 . ELIZABETH AND MARY. 105 

authority of the Popes. Under Elizabeth, who 
began to reign in 1558, the EngHsh Church was finally 
reformed. The Pope was again got rid of, but less 
change was made than in other lands; while in Scotland, 
where the Reformation began later than in England, 
greater changes were made than anywhere else. For 
in England the King began to make changes, and 
in Scotland the people. But the Queen of Scots, 
Mary Stewart, who had been the wife of Francis 
the Second of France, stuck to the old religion. She 
was driven out of her kingdom, and sought shelter in 
England in 1569, Eighteen years after she was be- 
headed for her share in a plot against Elizabeth. 
Then in 1588 Philip of Spain sent his Armada or 
Great Fleet to conquer England, which came to no- 
thing. Elizabeth was now^ the head of the Protestant 
party throughout Europe, and the war with Spain went 
on all her days. On her death, in 1603, James the 
Sixth of Scotland succeeded her in England, so 
France could no longer count on Scotland as an ally 
against England. England now lost the place which 
she held in Europe under Elizabeth. Under Charles 
the First came the Great Civil War between the 
King and the Parliament, and, under the Protector 
Oliver Cromwell, England again became a great 
power. 

12. Northern Europe. — Early in the sixteenth 
century the union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms 
came altogether to an end. Christian the Second, 
called the Cruel, reigned for a while over all three. 
In 1523 Sweden and Denmark chose different kings. 
Sweden chose Gustavus Vasa, who brought in the 
doctrines of Luther ; but in Sweden, as in England, 
much less change was made than elsewhere. Sweden 
now look a higher position in Europe than it had 
done before, especially under its greatest King, 
Gustavus Adolphus. Under his daughter Chris- 
tina the Swedish frontier was enlarged westwards. 



io6 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Meanwhile the Oldenburg Kings reigned over both 
Denmark and Norway. Under Frederick the First, 
who reigned from 1523 to 1533, the Lutheran reHgion 
was estabhshed in Denmark, and Frederick the 
Second, from 1559 to 1588, conquered the land of 
Dithmarschen, where the people had still kept 
the old freedom, as the Forest Cantons had done at 
the other end of Germany. 

13. Poland and Prussia. — In the sixteenth 
century, under the House of Jagellon, Poland was 
one of the greatest states of Europe, stretching over 
a great part of Russia. But part of the Russian ter- 
ritory was presently lost, and since then the Polish 
frontier has gone back. In 1525 the Teutonic Knights 
were abolished, and their Grand Master Albert of 
Brandenburg became hereditary Duke of East 
Prussia, as a vassal of Poland. Presently the Duchy 
of Prussia was joined with the Electorate of Bran- 
denburg; afterwards Prussia was released from its 
vassalage, and Brandenburg and Prussia together 
formed a new power. So part of the possessions of 
the Knights in Livonia were added, first to Poland 
and then to Sweden, and part was made into a 
Duchy by the Grand Master Kettler. In 1573 the 
crown of Poland was made purely elective, and from 
that time the power of the country greatly went down. 

14. Russia. — Meanwhile Russia, which had been 
so long in the background, was growing up again. 
Under John or Ivan the Fourth, called Ivan the 
Terrible, who reigned from 1533 to 1584, the 
Tartars of Kasan were utterly overthrown, and the 
Russian frontier reached to the Caspian Sea. But 
from the Euxine Russia was cut off by the Tartars 
of Krim, who answered to the Spanish Saracens at 
Granada. From the Baltic Russia was cut off by 
Poland and Sweden, so that all the trade that Russia 
had with Western Europe was by the White Sea. 
Ivan took the title of Czar, which some say is a 



I 



IX.] POLAND, RUSSIA, AND HUNGARY. 107 

corruption of Caesar, for the rulers of Russia have 
always wished to be deemed the successors of the 
Eastern Emperors. In 1589 the Hne of Ruric came 
to an end, and, after a time of confusion, the house of 
Romanoff began in 1613. Since then Russia has 
steadily pressed eastward, westward, and southward. 

15. Turkey and Hungary. — In the first year 
of the sixteenth century the Ottomans were threat- 
ened by a fresh Mahometan enemy. As Persia had 
before risen under Artaxerxes by the preaching of 
the old Persian religion, it rose again now under 
princes called the Sophis, by the preaching of the 
Shiah form of Mahometanism. Meanwhile the 
Ottomans were pressing westward, northward, and 
southward. Selim the Inflexible, who reigned 
from 1512 to 1520, won Syria and Egypt, and the 
nominal Caliph in Egypt gave up his rights to him. 
This made the Ottoman Sultan the head of all orthodox 
Mahometans. Then from 1520 to 1566 came Suleiman 
— that is, Solomon — the Law giver, under w^hom the 
Ottoman power greatly advanced. In his war with 
the Emperor Charles he was backed up by Francis of 
France. The greater part of Hungary was conquered, 
Vienna was besieged, the Knights of Saint John were 
driven from Rhodes and afterwards besieged in Malta, 
which had been given them by the Emperor. Sulei- 
man w^as the last of the Sultans who threatened the 
whole world, but after his time the Turks still made 
some conquests. They had endless wars with Persia 
to the east, and w4th Poland and Hungary to- the north. 
From this time, beginning with the Emperor Ferdi- 
nand, the Hungarian crown has always been held by 
Austrian princes. 

16. The Thirty Years' War.— Out of the reli- 
gious disputes of the sixteenth century came the great 
religious w^ar of the seventeenth century, called the 
Thirty Years^ War, which was waged in Germany, 
but in which many other nations took a share. It 



ro8 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

began in Bohemia in 1619, where the intolerance of 
the King, the Emperor Ferdinand the Second, 
drove the Protestants to revolt, and they chose 
Frederick the Elector Palatine to be King. 
Frederick lost both his new kingdom and his old 
dominions ; but the war spread through all Germany. 
At first the Imperial troops carried all before them ; 
so other Protestant powers stepped in, Christian 
the Fourth of Denmark first, and then Gustavus 
Adolphus of Sweden. He came in 1630, and won 
L,Teat victories for two years, and then was killed at 
Liitzen. But Sweden took a part in the war till the 
end. So far the war had been for the defence of 
Protestantism in Germany; but in 1635, France 
under Richelieu joined in it, and it became a war for 
the aggrandizement of France. Peace was made 1648 
under a new Emperor, Ferdinand the Third, who 
began in 1637, and a new King of France, Lewis 
the Fourteenth, who began in 1643. He was then 
a child, but France was ruled by Cardinal Mazarin, 
as before by Cardinal Richelieu. By the Peace of 
Westphalia the two religions in Germany were 
put on a level, but the land was ruined, and from this 
time all power was in the hands of the princes. 
France got a great part of Elsass, which was cut off 
from the Empire. The kings of Sweden also got 
lands in Germany, but they became Princes of the 
Empire. From then between France and Spain the war 
went Qx\ till 1659, when France got Roussillon and 
some places in the Netherlands. 

17. European Colonies. — Nearly all the sea- 
faring powers of Europe made settlements in the 
newly-found lands in the east and in the west. Portu- 
gal began; then came Spain, and afterwards France, 
England, and the United Provinces. These settle- 
ments -were of two kinds. Some, chiefly in Africa 
and the East Indies, were settlements for trade, which 
often grows into dominion, but where none stay 



IX.] EUROPEAN COLONIES, 109 

and leave their children behind them. Others, chiefly 
in America, were real colonies, which have grown 
into new English, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking 
nations. But the colonies were not independent, like 
the old Greek colonies; they were all subject to the 
mother country. The Portuguese began their settle- 
ments in Africa before the Cape of Good Hope was 
found out. After that, they pressed further east, 
towards India and the Eastern Islands, and in the 
sixteenth century they had a greater eastern dominion 
than any other European power. But in America the 
Spaniards came first; for Columbus, who in 1492 
reached the West India islands first, though a Genoese, 
was in the service of Ferdinand and Isabel. Others of 
the first discoverers, among them Amerigo Ves- 
pucci, from whom the continent took its name of 
America, were Italians in the service of foreign kings. 
Between 1519 and 1536 the great Spanish dominion 
in America was founded. In South America the Por- 
tuguese also made their great colony of Brazil. The 
French, English, and Dutch had chiefly to do with 
North America. The real beginning both of French 
and of English colonization began about the same 
time, in 1606 and 1607. The English colonies, of 
which Virginia came first, and then New England, 
have grown into the United States. There were also 
Dutch and Swedish colonies on those coasts, and 
France claimed a great territory to the north, south, 
and west. Thus a new European world arose beyond 
the Ocean. From this time the history of India, and 
-Still more that of America, becomes part of the history 
of Europe. 

1%, Learning, Art, and Science. — The move- 
ment in men's minds which led to the religious Re- 
formation, led also to great advances in knowledge of 
all kinds. The New Learning spread itself from 
Italy over other lands. Latin still remained the 
language of learning and science, but men in most 



no HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

lands began to write history and poetry in their own 
tongues. The religious disputes led to much writing 
on theological matters on all sides. The sixteenth 
century was also the age of the great Italian painters, 
and of m.any of the chief poets of England, Italy, Spain, 
and Portugal ; France shone more in the way of prose. 
Different nations now knew more of each other's lan- 
guages, the Italian language being specially studied. 
And, as the twelfth century had revived the study of 
the Roman Law in Italy, so now in the United 
Provinces arose the study of the Law of Nations, 
the rules by which nations hold themselves to be 
bound in matters of war and peace. Germany was 
kept back by its civil wars ; but Luther's translation of 
the Bible fixed the standard of the German language, 
and ruled that High-Dutch should have the upper- 
hand over Low. Men also got a greater knowledge 
of nature and truer notions of the movements of 
the heavenly bodies, though this new teaching was 
held by the Popes to be heretical. On the other hand, 
Pope Gregory the Thirteenth put the calendar right, 
which had never been put right since the time of 
Caesar, and for a long time this reform was accepted 
by Catholics and refused by Protestants. By the 
Eastern Church it is refused still. 

19. Summary. — During this time the relative im- 
portance of the powers of Europe changed greatly. 
The Empire practically came to an end ; but 
the title of Emperor was still given to the German 
Kings of the House of Austria. The Spanish branch 
of that House rose to the first place in Europe ; 
but, during the Thirty Years* War, France began to 
supplant it. The Italian states became dependencies of 
Spain, except so far as Venice still remained a bulwark 
against the Turks. Of the other bulwarks of Europe, 
Hungary had ceased to be an independent kingdom; 
the Turks held the greater part, and the Austrian 
Archdukes were Kings of the rest. Poland was at the 



X, ] L E WIS THE FO UR TEE NTH. 1 1 1 

height of her power at the beginning of the period, 
but she went down towards the end. Meanwhile new 
powers were rising. England and Scotland, though 
still separate kingdoms, formed one state as regarded 
other nations. The revolt of the United Provinces 
from Spain had made a new nation. Sweden suddenly 
became one of the chief powers of Europe, Russia 
took the first steps towards greatness. The discovery 
of new lands in the east and west altogether changed 
the face of the world, and gave a new range for all 
the sea-faring powers. Meanwhile the changes in 
religion split the Churches of the West altogether 
asunder; but the same movement of men's minds 
which caused this caused also great advances of 
thought and knowledge in every way. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE GREATNESS OF FRANCE. 

I. Growth of the French Power. — France 
now begins to take the place of Spain as the leading 
power in Europe. She had already humbled both 
branches of the House of Austria, and had dismem- 
bered the Empire itself. In 1661 Lewis the 
Fourteenth took the government into his own 
hands, and ruled more absolutely than any King before 
him. In 1665, on the death of Philip the Fourth of 
Spain, he claimed part of the Netherlands, as belong- 
ing to his queen, though she had given up all such 
claims at her marriage. Down to 1679 he made 
various conquests in the Netherlands, and won the 
County of Burgundy, the city of Besancon, 
and some more towns in Elsass. He also attacked 
the United Provinces, which now began to help their 
old enemy Spain against their new enemy France. 



1 1 2 HIS TOR Y OF E U'ROPE. [char 

The Emperor Leopold and some of the German 
princes also took part in the war. Lewis, who 
persecuted the Protestants in France, supported the 
Protestants of Hungary against the Emperor, and 
aUied himself with the Turks, as Francis the First had 
done. In J679, by the peace of Nimwegen, Lewis 
kept these conquests. But he still went on seizing 
places in Elsass, and in 1681 he seized Strassburg 
itself in time of peace. He also seized Avignon, and 
insulted the commonwealth of Genoa. 

2. England, the United Provinces, and 
France. — But the power of Lewis was now checked by 
the union of England and the United Provinces. 
The Protector Cromwell, died in 1658, and, after a 
time of confusion, Charles the Second came back in 
1660. Then England lost the position which she had 
held under Cromwell; for Charles truckled to France 
and took money from Lewis. There were wars 
between England and the United Provinces both 
under the Commonwealth and under Charles the 
Second. But meanwhile the Princes of Orange 
were for some generations Stadholders or chief 
magistrates of Holland, and one of them, William 
the Second, married a daughter of our Charles the 
First. His son William, who was also Stadholder 
after a while, was the leader in defending the Pro- 
vinces against Lewis. He married his cousin Mary, 
daughter of James Duke of York, the brother of 
Charles the Second. In 1685 Charles died, and 
James, who had become a Roman Catholic, succeeded. 
His illegal doings caused him to be driven out in 1688, 
and William and Mary were chosen King and 
Queen. Thus England and the United Provinces were 
ready to withstand France together. Just at this time 
war broke out again over almost all Europe. Kin^ 
William, as the head of both countries,, was the soul of 
the Grand Alliance which was formed to withstand 
France, and which took in the Emperor, the King of 



X] I FA/? OF THE SPANISH SUCCESS/O.V. 113 

Spain, and various German Princes. At last, in 1697, 
peace was made at Ryswick, by which Lewis gave up 
some other places which he had seized in Germany, 
but kept Strassburg, In 1702 King William died, 
and was succeeded by Anne, daughter of James the 
Second. 

3. War of the Spanish Succession. — Under 
Charles the Second of Spain, who reigned from 
1675 ^^ 1700, that kingdom went down yet more than 
ever. As Charles had no children, there were disputes 
as to the succession, and several treaties were made to 
settle it. It was at last agreed that Spain should pass 
to the Emperor's son the Archduke Charles, and that 
the rest of the Spanish dominions in Europe should be 
divided. But when Charles of Spain died, he left all 
his dominions to Philip Duke of Anjou, a grandson 
of Lewis of France. Thus another war broke out, in 
which England, the United Provinces, the Empire, 
Brandenburg or Prussia, and Savoy, all took a part. 
The Duke of Marlborough's victories were now 
W'On, and England got Gibraltar. Peace was made 
in 1 7 13 and 17 14 by the treaties of Utrecht and 
Rastadt. Philip was acknowledged King of Spain 
and the Indies — that is of the settlements of Spain 
in America and the East ; but Gibraltar and the island 
of Minorca were cut ott from Spain, and kept by Eng- 
land. Charles, who in 1711 had succeeded to the 
Empire and to the Austrian states, took the Nether- 
lands, Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, and part of 
the Duchy of Milan. The rest of that Duchy and 
the Kingdom of Sicily went to Victor Amadeus, 
Duke of Savoy. Before long, in 17 15, Lewis the 
Fourteenth died. Though he had increased his domi- 
nions, his kingdom was greatly w^eakened by his wars, 
and above all by his persecution of the Protestants, 
which drove many of the most industrious people in the 
land to leave France and carry their skill elsewhere. 

4. Great Britain and Ireland. — This was an 



1 14 HISTOR V OF EUROPE. [chap. 

important time as to the relations between the three 
kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Scotland 
and Ireland had been conquered by Cromwell and 
made into one commonwealth with England. When 
Charles the Second came back, Scotland again be- 
came an independent kingdom, and Ireland became 
a dependency of England. The Scots were chiefly 
Presbyterians, that is, Protestants who had made 
greater changes than the Church of England had done, 
and they were much persecuted by Charles and James. 
So, when the English chose William and Mary, the 
Scots gladly chose them also, and thus secured their 
own religion. But the Irish were mainly Roman Ca- 
tholics ; so they clave to James, and King William had 
to conquer the land. Harsh laws were passed against 
the Roman Catholics, so that the Revolution, which 
brought freedom to England and Scotland, brought 
only bondage to Ireland. In Queen Anne's time, in 
1707, England and Scotland were joined into the one 
Kingdom of Great Britain, on which Ireland re- 
mained dependent. As neither William nor Anne left 
children, the next Protestant heir, George Elector 
of Hanover, a descendant of James the First in the 
female line, was chosen to succeed, which he did on 
Anne's death in 17 14. 

5. Germany and Hungary.— The Emperor du- 
ring most part of this time was Leopold the First, 
who reigned from 1658 to 1705. The German Princes 
now did much as they pleased, and some of them 
joined Lewis in his wars with the Empire. But the 
union of Brandenburg and Prussia had made a 
new German power, which grew greatly under Fre- 
derick WilHam, who was called the Great Elector. 
In 170T his son Frederick took the title of King of 
Prussia. The next king, Frederick William the First, 
greatly strengthened the Prussian army. Meanwhile, 
in 1683 the Turks besieged Vienna, but they were 
driven back by John Sobieski King of Poland and 



X.] IVA/^S OF VIE.YNA AND CANDIA. 115 

Charles Duke of Lorraine. Hungary was now 
quite cleared of the Turks, and in 1687 the crown was 
made hereditary in the House of Austria. Under 
Leopold, under Joseph, who succeeded in 1705, and 
under Charles the Sixth, w^ho reigned from 17 11 to 
1740, there were several Turkish wars till the peace of 
Passarowitz in 17 18. Part of Servia, with the city of 
Belgrade, was now given up by the Turks. 

6. Italy. — In Italy, the Duchy of Savoy and the 
Commonwealth of Venice are now the only states 
that have any history. The other states were changed 
about as foreign powers thought good, and by the 
Treaty of Utrecht the Emperor Charles the Sixth be- 
came almost as much master of Italy as Charles the 
Fifth had been. But Savoy w^as growing. Its Dukes 
took some part in every w^ar, and gained something by 
every peace. Thus Duke Victor Amadeus gained by 
the Peace of Utrecht part of the Duchy of Milan and 
was made King of the island of Sicily. Meanwhile 
Venice still kept up the struggle with the Turks, though 
her power was sadly falling back. From 1645 to 1669 
went on the War of Candia, so called from the long 
siege of the town of Candia in Crete. The island 
was now lost, but in 1684 the Venetians under Fran- 
cesco Morosini conquered all Peloponnesos, and 
kept it till 17 15. The Turks then won back the 
peninsula, and from that time Venice kept none of 
her Greek dominions except the seven Ionian Islands 
and one or two points on the Albanian coast. 

7. Northern Europe. — During the latter half of 
the seventeenth century Sweden still kept the place in 
Europe which had been won for her by Gusta\'us Adol- 
phus. Besides her new possessions in Germany, the 
Peace of Oliva in 1660 gave her nearly all Livonia, 
and that part of Denmark which lay within the north- 
ern peninsula. In 1682 Sweden was made an absolute 
monarchy, as Denmark had been in 1660. Now in 
1697 came the famous Charles the Twelfth, who 



ii6 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

tried to do greater things than he was able to do. He 
was attacked by Denmark, Poland, and Russia all at 
once. Russia was now ruled by the famous Peter 
the Great, and Poland, after being cut short both by 
Sweden and Turkey, had risen again under her King 
John Sobieski. He was now dead, and the next 
King was Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony, 
called Augustus the Strong. Charles first beat 
the Danes, then the Russians in the Battle of Narva, 
then pressed on into Poland, and in 1704 drove out 
Augustus and caused the Poles to choose a new King, 
Stanislaus Leszczynski. But Charles was pre- 
sently defeated by the Russians at Pultowa, and took 
shelter with the Turks. Thence he got back to his 
own dominions, and was at last killed in 17 18, at Fre- 
derickshall in Norway. Under his sister Ulrica, peace 
was made, and Sweden now began to be cut short. 
Livonia and other lands were given up to Russia, and 
most of the German territory of Sweden was lost. The 
royal power too was made very small. From this time 
both Sweden and Poland ceased to be great powers. 
8. The Turks.— Though the Turks still made 
some conquests, their power on the whole was going 
down on all sides. This was chiefly because they now 
left off the practice of levying a tribute of children on the 
subject nations, Greeks, Slaves, and others, which they 
had done ever since the time of Sultan Bajazet. The 
Turks took the strongest and cleverest children, and 
brought them up in their own religion. They became the 
chief servants of the Sultan, and of them was formed the 
force of the Janissaries, who were the great strengtn 
of the Turkish armies. Thus the strength of the sub- 
ject nations was turned against themselves. But when 
the tribute was no longer levied, the Janis-aries be- 
came a hereditary caste, and the Sultans had no longer 
such good soldiers and wise counsellors. Before long 
the subject nations began to think of making them- 
selves free. 



X . ] E UR OPE A N COL ONIES, 1 1 7 

9. European Colonies and Settlements. — 

Meanwhile settleirients beyond the ocean were being 
busily planted, especially by the great seafaring powers, 
England and the United Provinces. The English 
colonies in North America were now gradually 
planted, the last being Georgia in 3723, which made 
up the number of thirteen. But one of the chief of 
these, namely New York, was not an English colony 
from the beginning. It was at first a colony of the 
United Provinces, called New Netherland, with its 
capital New Amsterdam. But this was conquered 
by England in Charles the Second's time, and New 
Amsterdam was called New York, after James Duke 
of York, afterwards King James the Second. Whenever 
there was war between France and England, there was 
also war between their colonies in America. By the 
Peace of Utrecht in 17 13, England got the French 
colony of Acadia, which was called Nova Scotia; 
but, shortly after this, the French founded Ne^v 
Orleans on the Mississippi. Meanwhile the English 
settlements in India had begun ; but as yet the 
English were merely one set of traders along with 
the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Danes. Some 
of these other settlements still survive, though the 
English have so greatly outstripped them. The East 
India Company began as a trading body under 
James the First ; and trade gradually grew into 
dominion. By the end of the seventeenth century 
the English had made their three chief settlements of 
Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. With the great islands 
to the east of India England had not much to do. 
The chief powers there were the Dutch and Spaniards. 
10. Summary. — Thus during this time the power 
of Spain went down, till at last the great Spanish mon- 
archy was altogether cut in pieces. France took the 
lead instead of Spain, and grew so fast, that it needed 
the union of several other powers to keep her in check. 
England began, under William the Third, to hold a 



Ii8 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

high place in all continental affairs. She also greatly 
extended her colonies in America, and began her do- 
minion in India. The Empire had become a mere 
name ; but the Emperors, as Austrian princes, had 
gained greatly in the Netherlands and Italy, and also 
as Kings of Hungary against the Turks. Another 
great German power was also growing up in the new 
kingdom of Prussia. Italy was dead, save that Savoy 
was advancing, and that Venice still gallantly with- 
stood the Turks. The Turks, though they still made 
some conquests, were ceasing to be feared. Sweden 
and Poland sank from the rank of great powers. 
Russia meanwhile sprang up and grew at the expense 
of Sweden, Poland, and Turkey. In learning and 
literature France and England were at this time de- 
cidedly at the head. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE ALLIANCE OF THE BOURBON KINGDOMS. 

I. France and Spain. — The most lasting events 
of this time were the growth of Russia into a great 
power, and the rivalry between the House of Austria 
and the growing power of Prussia. Out of this last has 
come the present state of things in Germany. But 
what at the time specially distmguished this period 
was that, during the greater part of it, the Bourbon 
Kings of France and Spain were in close alliance 
with each other, and in constant rivalry with Great 
Britain. And, as that rivalry was mainly carried on 
among the colonies and distant possessions of those 
three powers, it led to great changes in distant parts 
— to the establishment of the great naval powder of 



XI.] THE A USTRIAN SUCCESSION. 119 

England, to the foundation of the British dominion in 
India, and to the independence of the United States 
of America. But at the beginning of the time we 
have one war in which England and France were 
leagued against Spain ; after that France and Spain 
were always leagued against England. 

2. The House of Austria. — Meanwhile the 
centre of strictly European affairs is no longer indeed 
the Empire, but the Imperial House of Austria. For 
a while the rivalry between the House of Austria 
and the House of Bourbon still went on, only Spain 
was now Bourbon and not Austrian. The one v/ar 
in which England and France were united was waged 
by Cardinal Alberoni, the minister of Phihp the 
Fifdi of Spain, to get back the Spanish possessions in 
Italy. But Spain got back nothing, only the Emperor 
and the King of Sicily exchanged their Italian king- 
doms, so that the Emperor became King of the 
Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Savoy became King 
of Sardinia instead of Sicily. In the same year the 
Emperor Charles the Six4;h, by an act called the 
Pragmatic Sanction, settled all his hereditary 
dominions on his daughter Maria Theresa ; but by 
the War of the Polish Election, which began 
in 1733 between the Emperor and the two Bourbon 
kingdoms, the Austrian dominions in Italy were cut 
short. The Sicilies were given to a younger branch 
of the Spanish Bourbons, and Sardinia again got part 
of Milan. It was also settled that the Duchy of 
Lorraine should be given for life to Stanislaus, who 
had been King of Poland, and should, on his death, 
pass to France. Francis, Duke of Lorraine, who had 
married Maria Theresa, was to have Tuscany instead 
of his own duchy. Thus, by Lorraine becoming 
French, the Empire itself was cut short as well as the 
House of Austria, and the Austrian powder, which had 
been so great at one part of Charles the Sixth's reign, 
went down a good deal before his death. 



I20 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

3. Austria and Prussia. — Charles the Sixth died 
in 1740, and his hereditary dominions, Hungary, 
Bohemia, Austria, etc., passed to his daughter Maria 
Theresa, who was called Queen of Hungary. No 
Emperor was chosen for two years, and meanwhile, 
Charles Elector of Bavaria claimed the whole 
Austrian dominions. Silesia was claimed and con- 
quered by the new King of Prussia, Frederick the 
Second, called Frederick the Great ; and in 1742 
the Elector of Bavaria was chosen Emperor. Eng- 
land, Sardinia, and the United Provinces helped the 
Queen of Hungary, while France and Spain helped 
her enemies. In the end Frederick kept nearly all 
Silesia, Maria I'heresa kept the rest of her hereditary 
dominions, and when the Emperor Charles the 
Seventh died in 1745, her husband Duke Francis 
was chosen Emperor. Maria Theresa, being herself 
Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and being also the 
Emperor's wife, was called the Empress-Queen. 
Through her marraige both the Austrian dominions 
and the Empire passed into a new family, that of 
Lorraine. In 1756 the Seven Years' War began 
between the King of Prussia and the Empress-Queen. 
This time France was on the Austrian side, as wxre 
also Russia, Poland, and Sweden, while England 
helped Prussia. In this war Frederick, left thus almost 
alone, showed how great a general he was ; but in 1762 
Peter the Third of Russia changed sides and helped 
Frederick. In 1765, Joseph, the son of Francis and 
Maria Theresa, succeeded his father in the Empire, 
and ruled along with his mother in her hereditary 
dominions. After her death in 1780 he reigned 
alone. Joseph was a reformer, but he often did more 
harm than good by not showing respect to the old 
laws and customs of his kingdoms. He was succeeded 
in 1774 by Leopold the Second, and he in 1792 
by the last Emperor, Francis the Second. 

4. Great Britain. — Meanwhile Great Britain had 



XI.] IVAJ^S OF AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA. 121 

foreign kings, and was constantly mixed up with 
foreign wars. In some of these we had to withstand 
powers which wished to bring back the Pretender, 
the son of James the Second, instead of the two Kings 
George First and Second. Thus in 17 15 Lewis the 
Fourteenth, just at the end of his reign, encouraged 
the Pretender to try to win the British crowns from 
King George. But this rebeUion came to nothing. 
In the beginning of Lewis the Fifteenth's reign, 
when the Duke of Orleans was Regent and Eng- 
land was in alliance with France and the Emperor 
Charles against Spain, Spain and Charles the Twelfth 
of Sweden tried to bring in the Pretender. Again, in 
1739, when George the Second was king, another war 
with Spain was forced by the people on the king and his 
minister Sir Robert Walpole. England also took 
a part in the war of the Austrian Succession and in 
the Seven Years' War. In these wars England and 
France were always on opposite sides. Then in 1745 
Charles Edward, the son of the old Pretender, with 
French help, stirred up a rebelHon as his father had 
done, but he was overthrown at Culloden. This w^ar 
with France was chiefly waged by sea and in America, 
where many victories were won, and Canada was gained, 
under the administration of William Pitt, afterwards 
Earl of Chatham. After this, in the reign of George 
the Third, who succeeded in 1760, came the war in 
which the English colonies in North America be- 
came independent, and in 1782 Ireland became a 
kingdom independent of Great Britain, having its own 
parliament, though under the same king. 

5. France. — After Lewis the Fourteenth came his 
great-grandson Lewis the Fifteenth, who also came to 
the crown as a child, and had a long reign, till 1774. 
In his time France extended her territory in two places. 
The Duchy of Lorraine fell to France at the death 
ot Stanislaus in 1766. Thus with the Three Bishop- 
ricks and the French lands in Elsass, France had now 



122 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [ch\p. 

a compact territory taken from the Empire. France 
also at this time gained the Italian island of Corsica, 
which had belonged to Genoa. The Corsicans tried 
to make themselves free under the famous Paoii ; but 
the Genoese in 1768 made over their rights to France ; 
and the French conquered the island. All this while 
the state of France itself was getting worse and worse. 
But the storm did not burst in the days of Lewis the 
Fifteenth, but in those of the next king, his grandson 
Lewis the Sixteenth. 

6. Spain. — From the reign of Philip the Fifth 
onward Spain greatly advanced at home and abroad, 
and it can hardly be doubted that her rise was owing 
to her having lost her dominion in Italy and become 
a compact national power. Portugal was but little 
heard of. In the latter part of the Seven Years' War, 
France and Spain together set upon Portugal as being 
an ally of England ; but the Portuguese, with English 
help, drove them back. 

7. Italy. — Italy was not now quite so downtrodden 
as in the time just before. The Italian principalities 
were indeed handed over from one prince to another, 
and the commonwealths now counted for nothing, save 
for one moment in 1 746. Then Genoa rose and drove 
out an Austrian garrison, and we have seen that the 
Corsicans rose against Genoa. Still, except just after 
the Peace of Utrecht, Italy was not at this time so 
utterly under the power of one foreign king as it had 
been in the days of the Spanish dominion. In 1748, 
after many shiftings, the principalities of Italy were 
settled. Austria kept part of the Duchy of Milan. 
The King of Sardinia got another part, and, on the 
extinction of the House of the Medici, Francis of 
Lorraine, the Emperor Francis the First, got the 
Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In 1765 he was suc- 
ceeded by his son Leopold, who was afterwards 
Emperor, and who did much for the good of his duchy : 
and though Spain herself got no Italian territory, 



XI.] THE LESSER STATES. 123 

a Spanish prince, Charles, who was afterwards King of 
Spain, got the kingdom of the Two Sicihes and an- 
other got the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. Thus 
there were four Bourbon princes reigning in Europe. 

8. The Netherlands. — During this time the 
power of the United Provinces steadily went down, 
chiefly because their trade passed into the hands of 
Great Britain. In the Seven Years' War they sup- 
ported the Queen of Hungary, and were therefore 
attacked by France. At this time, in 1747, the 
Princes of Orange were made Hereditary Stad- 
holders. Towards the end of the period the com- 
monwealth had become quite insignificant ; and had 
fallen almost wholly under the control of Prussia. 
Meawhile in those provinces which had been Spa- 
nish and were Austrian, the changes made by the 
Emperor Joseph the Second towards the end of this 
time led to disturbances. 

9. Northern Europe. — The Scandinavian king- 
doms, especially Sweden, now became, like the United 
Provinces, of much less account than before. Sweden 
had wars with Russia, and in 1743 she had to give up 
the district ofCareha on the Gulf of Fmland. After 1720 
the government remained almost wholly aristocratic, till 
in 1772 the royal power was set up again. Meanwhile in 
Denmark the kings remained absolute, but the country 
flourished, and its naval power was strengthened. 
During this time too the Duchies of Sleswick and 
Holstein were united with the Danish crown, Hol- 
stein remaining a fief of the Empire, while Sleswick 
was not. 

ID. The Growth of Russia. — But the change 
which, above all others, marks this time, is the rise of 
Russia to be one of the great powers of Europe. 
This was mainly the w^ork of Peter the Great, 
who reigned from 1682 to 1725. He made many 
reforms in his dominions, and greatly extended the 
Russian power. Russia had hitherto had no port but 



124 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Archangel on the White Sea, but in 1696 Peter won a 
haven on the Black Sea by taking Azof from the 
Turks. Next, the conquest of Livonia and the other 
lands which were given up by Sweden gave Russia a 
sea-board on the Baltic, where Peter founded his 
new capital of St. Petersburg. Thus Russia had now 
havens on three European seas, and Peter also in- 
creased his power on the Caspian, at the expense of 
Persia. He took the title of Empei*or of all the 
Russias ; which, besides giving offence to the Ger- 
man kings who still bore the title of Roman Emperors, 
amounted to a claim over all the Russian territory 
held by Poland. After Peter's time the power of 
Russia, with a few reverses, went on advancing. The 
crown did not follow any strict law of succession, but 
passed sometimes by will, sometimes by revolution, 
and it was often held by women. After Peter came his 
widow Catharine, and soon after his niece Anne, 
his daughter Ehzabeth, and lastly Catharine the 
Second, who succeeded in 1762 on the murder of 
her husband, Peter the Third, and reigned till 1796. 
She greatly extended the Russian power at the expense 
of the Turks, and overthrew the last traces of the 
Tartar power by the conquest of the peninsula called 
Crimea, and the neighbouring lands on the Black 
Sea. This answers in the history of Russia to the 
conquest of Granada in the history of Spain. 

II. The Fall of Poland.— Under Catharine the 
Second the power of Russia was also carried into the 
heart of Europe at the expense of Poland. All through 
the eighteenth century Poland grew weaker and 
weaker. Russia hindered all attempts at reform, and 
forced on the country the last two kings, Augustus, 
Elector of Saxony, son of Augustus the Strong, and 
Stanislaus Poniatowski, a native Pole. Then in 
1772 Catharine joined with Frederick the Great and 
with the Empress-Queen, in her character as Queen of 
Hungary, to partition Poland, each taking some parts 



XL] • RUSSIA AND TURKEY, 125 

which lay near to them. In 1793 Russia and Prussia 
each took another share, and in 1795 ^^^ kingdom of 
Poland was altogether destroyed, and what was left 
w^as divided among the three powers. Russia got 
back most of her old territory, and the chief part of 
Lithuania. Here the people mainly belonged to the 
Eastern Church, and had been often persecuted by 
Poland on account of their religion. Prussia took 
West Prussia, and so joined the kingdom of Prussia 
to her German territories. She also took the greater 
part of old Poland, and a small part of Lithuania. 
Austria or Hungary took the rest of old Poland, and 
some Russian territory. Thus Poland was wiped out 
of the map of Europe. 

12. The Turks. — The Turks meanwhile ceased 
to be dreaded by Christian nations. Yet in the early 
part of the eighteenth century they were sometimes 
successful against Russia, and commonly so against 
Austria. Under Sultan Mahmoud the First, Bel- 
grade, and all that had been lost by the Peace of Pas- 
sarowitz, was won back b}^the Peace of Belgrade 
in 3739. But in the wars with Catharine the Second 
thfe Turks always lost. Thus by the Peace of Kai- 
nardji, in 1774, the Sultans gave up their superiority 
over the Khans of Crimea, which soon led to the 
conquest of that land by Russia. Russia too gained 
certain rights of interference in the principalities of 
Moldavia and Wallachia, which were dependent 
on Turkey. In 1792, by the Peace of Jassy, the 
Turkish frontier fell back to the Dniester. Moreover, 
since the Sultans ceased to levy the tribute of chil- 
dren, the subject nations grew stronger, and tried to 
revolt whenever they had a chance. In this they 
were always encouraged by Russia, though they seldom 
got any real help. All this is in som.e sort a falling 
back on much earlier times. Russia has again fleets 
on the Euxine threatening Constantinople, and the 
creed of the Eastern Church is no longer that of 



126 HISTOR Y OF EUROPE. [chap. 

merely subject or obscure nations, but that of one of 
the chief powers of Europe. 

13. The English power in India. — During 
this time the trading settlements of the East India 
Company grew into the English dominion in India. 
The wars between England and France went on also 
in India. At one time Dupleix, the governor of 
Pondicherry, the chief French settlement in India, 
formed great schemes of Indian dominion for his 
own country. But in 1757 the English and their na- 
tive aUies under Clive utterly overthrew the French 
and their native allies in the Battle of Plassy. 
From that time England steadily advanced to the 
chief power in India. The other European settle- 
ments .Jiave been as nothing beside the dominion of 
England. The native states have been, one by one, 
incorporated with the British dominion or made de- 
pendent on it, just as Rome dealt with the lands 
round .the Mediterranean. All this time the Enghsh 
dominion in India was not in the hands of the King's 
Government, but in that of the Company. But in 
1784, a body called the Board of Control was 
founded, to control the Company in certain cases by 
the King's authority. After Clive, the most famous 
name in Indian History is that of the Governor- 
General Warren Hastings. He wasimpeached — 
that is, accused by the House of Commons before the 
House of Lords — of misdoings of various kinds ; but, 
after a trial of many years, he was acquitted. 

14. The Independence of the United States. 
— Daring this time the English colonies in North 
America grew into a separate English-speaking 
nation. In all the wars among the European 
powers, their colonies in America joined ; and 
the wars which England had with France and Spain 
in America led to great results. The thirteen En- 
glish colonies lay along the east coast, and were 
hemmed in by the French colonies of Canada and 



XI.] FOUNDATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ii-j 

Louisiana to the north and west, and the Spanish 
colony of Florida to the south. In 1759, Canada 
was conquered by the EngUsh, and it has since 
been an EngUsh colony. Then, by the treaty of 
1763, Florida was given up to England, and 
Louisiana was divided between England and Spain ; 
thus France was quite shut out of North America. 
Then the British Government tried to tax the thirteen 
colonies, on which they revolted, and were helped, 
first by France, and afterwards by Spain. In 1776, 
the colonies declared themselves independent, each 
colony forming an independent state, joined together 
by a lax Confederation. In 1783 Great Britain 
acknowledged the independence of the thirteen 
colonies as the United States of America. 
Florida was given back to Spain, but Great Britain 
kept Canada, with the colonies of New Brunswick, 
Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. Thus the United 
States were hemmed in to the north and south, but 
they grew to the west, where many new states were 
soon added. In 1789 the States made their con- 
federation much closer under the new constitution. 
The first President was George Washington, who 
had been the great leader of the colonists during the 
War of Independence. 

15. Summary. — This time then was one of great 
changes, especially in distant parts of the world. In 
Europe itself there was no very great change, except 
the wiping out of Poland. Great Britain, France, 
and Spain all kept much the same European position. 
Prussia had risen to greatness ; but this was not the 
growth of a new nation : it was only that the chief 
power in Germany began to pass to a particular Ger- 
man state. Sweden and the United Provinces sank 
from a position which was really too great for their 
strength. But the mere extent of their territory was 
not greatly altered. The really great events of this 
time were the growth of Russia in Eastern Europe, 



128 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

the establishment of the British power in India, and 
the foundation of the United States in America. The 
rise of Russia brought into importance both the Russian 
nation, and also the Eastern Church, which had been in 
the back-ground ever since the fall of the Eastern Em- 
pire. And this gave a great stir to those nations akin 
to Russia by race or religion which were in bondage to 
the Turks. But the change in America and India was 
still greater. The English-speaking people, both in 
Europe and in America, were marked out as the 
leaders in colonization and distant dominion. No 
power ever before held so great a distant dominion, 
as distinguished from a real colony, as the British 
dominion in India. For the provinces of old Rome 
all lay together, and the Spanish possessions in 
America were strictly colonies. This time too was 
one of great advance in physical and moral science 
and in mechanical discovery. Men's minds also were 
more astir on questions of religion, government, and 
society than they had ever been before. Everything 
was making ready for the greatest changes which 
Europe had seen for many ages. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

I. The French Republic. — We have now come 
to times which a few old people can still remember. 
France is now the centre of everything, and men in 
France were now bent upon changing everything, good 
and bad. The great French Revolution began 
when Lewis the Sixteenth called together the States- 
General m 1789, which had not met since 1614; 
all that time the kings had never consulted^ the 
representatives of the nation. So, when the States 



XII.] THE FRENCH REVOLUTIOI^. 129 

came together, they began to make the greatest changes 
in everything, sweeping away the absolute power of the 
king and the privileges of the nobles and clergy, di- 
viding the land into departments instead of the old 
provinces which had once been separate states, and 
annexing Avignon and Venaissin, and the little that 
was left of Elsass. A new constitution left the Kmg very 
little power, and restored the old title of King of the 
French. In 1792 kingship was abolished, and the 
power was vested in a National Convention. In 
1793 the King was beheaded, and then followed the 
Reign of Terror, in which one party after another 
beheaded its enemies. In 1795 began a time 
of somewhat more quiet under the Directory ; 
but in 1799 they too were upset by Napoleon 
Buonaparte. He was by birth an ItaUan of 
Corsica, and counted as a Frenchman only because of 
the late French conquest of that island. He now took 
the government into his own hands by the title 
of Consul, and in 1804, when his power was fully 
estabUshed, he called himself Emperor of the 
French. Thus all these changes only ended in a 
new despotism. 

2. The Wars of the Revolution. — Meanwhile 
the new commonwealth was fighting with most of 
the powers of Europe. Before I^ewis the Sixteenth was 
beheaded, war began with the Emperor and the King 
of Prussia, and war with England followed directly 
after. From this time till 18 15 there was no real 
peace, though there were many stoppages, and though 
the powers engaged often changed sides. Some lands 
were altogether annexed to France ; others were 
made into separate commonwealths, which were really 
French dependencies. The first part of the war lasted 
till 1797. It w^as carried on in the Netherlands, along 
the Rhine, and in Italy. It was in these Italian 
campaigns that Napoleon Buonaparte first began to 
be famous. In this war France got the Austrian 



I30 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Netherlands from the Emperor Francis, and also Savoy 
and Piedmont. And when peace was made, the 
Emperor and the French Republic, like MaximiHan 
and Lewis the Twelfth, agreed to divide the terri- 
tories of Venice between them. So the old com- 
monwealth came to an end. Venice and Dalmatia 
became Austrian, and France took the Ionian Islands. 
Then came a war in Egypt, and, in 1790, an at- 
tack on Switzerland, which henceforth counted as a 
French dependency. Then in 1799 came another war 
with the Empire and with Russia. In 1801 Buona- 
parte, as Consul, made peace with the Empire, by 
which all Germany west of the Rhine was yielded to 
France. In 1802 he made peace with England at 
Amiens, but war broke out again almost directly. 

3. The Reign of Napoleon Buonaparte. — 
All men's old ideas had now so utterly died away 
that Buonaparte ventured to give himself out as the 
successor of Charles the Great. He crowned himself 
as Emperor at Paris in 1804, and in the next year he 
made part of Northern Italy into a kingdom and was 
crowned King of Italy at Milan. He was now 
again at war with England, and England never again 
made peace with him till his fall. In 1805 ^^^ 
naval power was broken at the Battle of Trafal- 
gar; but in his land campaigns from 1805 to 1811 
he brought nearly all Western Europe under his 
power. He set up his brothers as Kings, and moved 
them from one kingdom to another. When his power 
was at the highest, the French Empire, as it was 
called, and his kingdom of Italy, took in all Germany 
west of the Rhine, all the Netherlands, a great part 
of North- Western Germany, most part of Italy and 
a large territory beyond the Hadriatic. His brother- 
in-law Murat was King of Naples, and his brother 
Joseph King of Spain, and most of the Ger- 
man princes had become his dependents. In 18 12 
he attacked Russia, but he came back the next year, 



XII.] REIGN OF BUONAPARTE, 131 

having gained nothing. Then in 1 813 the whole German 
people rose against him, and Germany was set free in 
the Battle of Leipzig. Meanwhile the English, under 
the Duke of Wellington, had been freeing Spain 
and Portugal from Joseph Buonaparte. So in 18 14 
the allies entered France on both sides ; Buonaparte 
abdicated, but was allowed to keep the little island of 
Elba. Lewis the Eighteenth, a brother of Lewis 
the Sixteenth, became King of France, but in the next 
year 181 5, Buonaparte came back. He was now utterly 
overthrown by the English and Prussians at Water- 
loo, and he was kept in ward for the rest of his days 
in the htde island of St. Helena. By the Treaties of 
Paris and Vienna, France gave up her conquests, 
and kept nearly the same boundaries as she had before 
the Revolution began. 

4. The Fall of the Empire. — Next to France 
itself no part of Europe changed more during these 
times than Germany. The Roman Empire and the 
German Kingdom were now formally wiped out. 
When Buonaparte began to call himself Emperor 
of the French, the Emperor Francis called himself 
Hereditary Emperor of Austria, so utterly had 
the old meaning of the title been forgotten. In 1805 
Buonaparte defeated the Austrians and Russians in the 
Battle of Austerlitz, and then many of the Ger- 
man princes joined him. They threw off their allegi- 
ance to the Empire, and made themselves into the 
Confederation of the Rhine, of which Buonaparte 
was called the Protector. Three of them, the 
Electors of Bavaria and Saxony and the Duke of 
Wiirttemberg, called themselves Kings. In the 
same year 1806, the Emperor Francis formally re- 
signed the Empire, and no Roman Emperor has been 
chosen since. But he went on reigning in his heredi- 
tary dominions, calling himself Emperor of Austria. 
In the same year Prussia was overthrown in the 
Battle of Jena. Her German dominions were cut 

19. 



132 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

short, and the more part of her Polish dominions were 
made into a Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which 
was given to the new King of Saxony. Then in 1809 
Austria was again ovenhrown at Wagram, and lost 
all her south-western dominions. Thus, bv iSii, all 
Germany, except the parts left to Austria and Prussia, 
was either joined on to France or was wholly under 
Buonaparte's power. Then came the great deliver- 
ance of 1813. The people rose first, and the princes 
had to follow. After Buonaparte s fall the princes 
and free cities of Germany joined together into a lax 
Confederation, the presidency of which was given 
to Austria. Of this Confederation, the Sovereigns 
of Austria, Prussia, Denmark, Great Britain, and 
the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, were members 
for those parts of their dominions which lay within 
Germany. That is to say, in the case of our own King, 
for Hanover, which was now called a kingdom. 

5. Italy. — Meanwhile the states of Italy were changed 
backwards and forwards. Parts were annexed to 
France, other parts were made, first into dependent com- 
monwealths, and afterwards, in Buonaparte's time, into 
dependent principahties. But, when Buonaparte's power 
was at its height, the whole peninsula was, in one way 
or another, really in his hands. The Pope, Pius the 
Seventh, he had carried away into France. But 
Sicily and Sardinia were kept by their own Kings : 
for they were islands, and the English fleet took 
care of them. After the fall of Buonaparte, the Pope, 
the Kings of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies, and 
some of the other princes got their dominions again. 
But the commonwealths were not set up again ; only 
little San Marino was allowed to remain. Genoa 
was joined to Piedmont ; and the Duchy of Milan and 
the Venetian possessions- were again given to Austria, 
by the name of the Kingdom of Lombardy and 
Venice. Thus all Italy was parted out among des- 
potic princes, over whom Austna had again the chief 



XII.] SPAIN AND ITALY. 133 

power. It was only in the Sardinian states that the 
dynasty, though still despotic, was at least national. 

6. Spain and Portugal. — In the reign of 
Charles the Third, who had been King of the Two 
Sicilies, Spain greatly looked up again. Under Charles 
the Fourth, when the French Revolution began, 
Spain had first acted against France, but she after- 
wards changed sides and joined France against 
England and Portugal, and the Spanish fleet was 
overthrown along with the French at Trafalgar. Yet 
Buonaparte made the King abdicate ; he then in 1807 
got the king's son Ferdinand into his own powxr, and 
made his own brother Joseph King. But the patriotic 
Spaniards were helped by the English, and Spain 
was delivered. In 18 14 Ferdinand came back; but 
he overthrew the constitution which had been made 
while he was away. Meanwhile Portugal too was 
overrun by the French. The King John the Sixth 
went over to Brazil and reigned there, whilst the 
Portuguese at home joined the English and Spaniards 
in the war of independence. 

7. The Netherlands. — Those provinces of the 
Netherlands which had been held, first by Spain and 
then by Austria, Avere added to France early in the 
Revolutionary war. Then in 1795 ^^^ United Pro- 
vinces became a republic dependent on France. After- 
wards they were made into a kingdom for Buonaparte's 
brother Lewis, and at last they were joined to France. 
At the Peace, both the United Provinces and the 
Austrian Netherlands were made into a single King- 
dom of the Netherlands, under William, 
Prince of Orange, who was also a member of 
the German Confederation as Grand Duke of Luxem- 
burg. 

8. Switzerland. — The old League of the 
Thirteen Cantons, with their allied and subject 
states, went on till the French came in 1798. Their 
coming set Vaud and other subject districts 



134 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

free, but they had as little respect for the old demo- 
cracies as they had for Kings or oligarchies. They 
made the whole League into what they called the 
Helvetic Republic ; this w^as no longer a Confed- 
eration of independent states, but the cantons were 
mere departments, Geneva and some other of the 
allied states were added to France, some now, some 
afterwards. The new system did not suit the Swiss ; 
and in 1803, by the Act of Mediation, Buonaparte 
gave them a Federal Constitution again. Several of 
the aUies and subjects now became cantons. At the 
Peace the Swiss Confederation of twenty-two 
States was made, but the tie among them was very 
lax. Geneva and some other districts which had 
been joined to France now became separate cantons. 
9. Great Britain and Ireland. — England was 
at war with France during the whole of thew^ars which 
followed the French Revolution, save only the short 
stoppage which followed the Peace of Amiens. 
The victories of Lord Nelson broke the power of 
France by sea, and the land campaigns of the Duke 
of Wellington freed Spain and Portugal. In 1798 
there was a rebellion in Ireland, and in 1800 Ireland 
was joined with Great Britain into the one United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Our 
Kings now dropped the title of King of France, 
which they had kept ever since the Treaty of Troyes, 
The European possessions of England were not greatly 
changed at the Peace. The islands of Malta in the 
Mediterranean and of Heligoland in the German 
Ocean became British possessions. And the Ionian 
Islands were made into a commonwealth under 
British protection. In the distant parts of the world 
England made the greatest advances. During the ad- 
ministration of the Marquess Cornwallis and the 
Marquess Wellesley, the greater part of India 
was either annexed to the British dominion or 
brought under British influence. Colonization too 



XII.] SWEDEN AND NORWA Y. 135 

began in Australia. And in the course of the war 
large conquests were made among the colonies of 
France, Spain, and Holland. England thus got 
Ceylon and several other islands, the Cape of 
Good Hope in South Africa and a small territory 
in South America. During the last years of the 
French war, from 1813 to 1815; a war unhappily 
arose between England and the United States, but it 
ended without any change in the possessions of either. 
10. The Scandinavian Kingdoms. — This was 
a time of great changes in the three kingdoms of 
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. At the beginning 
of the French Revolution, the King of Sweden was 
Gustavus the Third, who restored the royal power ; 
but he was murdered in 1792. His successor Gusta- 
vus the Fourth was deposed in 1809, and the old 
freer constitution was restored. Both these Kings had 
wars with Russia, and in the time of Gustavus the 
Fourth, Sweden lost all Finland. The new King 
Charles the Thirteenth had no children; so the 
Swedes chose Bernadotte, one of Buonaparte's 
generals, to be Crown Prince or heir to the throne, 
and to succeed when the King died. In 18 13, 
Sweden, in virtue of her German possessions, joined 
in the war of liberation in Germany ; so Bernadotte 
fought against his old master. But Denmark had 
been on the side of France ; so at the peace it 
was settled that Norway should be taken from 
Denmark, and added to Sweden to make up for 
the loss of Finland. But the Norwegians refused 
to be joined on to Sweden ; they made them- 
selves a very free constitution, and chose a Danish 
prince for their King. They had to submit so far as 
to agree that Sweden and Norway should always 
have the same King ; but Norway remained a distinct 
kingdom with its own constitution. At the same 
time Swedish Pomerania was given to Denmark, and 
, afterwards exchanged with Prussia for Lauenburg. 



1 36 HISTOR V OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Thus Sweden was cut off altogether from the East and 
South coast of the Baltic ; but the whole of the 
Scandinavian peninsula was joined under one sove- 
reign. 

11. Russia and Poland. — After Catharine the 
Second came her son Paul, who was mad and 
was killed in 1801. He for a while joined Austria in 
the war with France, but afterwards made a separate 
peace. His son Alexander was at peace with 
France till 1805, when he joined with Austria agrinst 
Buonaparte. But, after the French victories over 
Austria and Prussia, he and Buonaparte made a treaty 
at Tilsit, and for six years Russia and France were 
at peace. During this time Russia won Finland from 
Sweden ; and in a war with Turkey she advanced her 
frontier to the Danube, and also won a large territory 
from Persia. Then in 1813 came the French in- 
vasion of Russia, and after that Russia took a chief 
part in putting down Buonaparte, At the Peace the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which had been increased 
by part of the Austrian dominions in Poland, was 
made into a Kingdom of Poland with a consti- 
tution of its own, which was joined to Russia as a 
separate kingdom, like Sweden and Norway. Only 
Posen was given back to Prussia. Alexander of 
Russia now called himself Emperor of all the 
Russias and King of Poland. Cracow also, 
the ancient capital of Poland, was made a free city 
under the protection of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. 

12. The Turks.— Under the Sultans, Selim the 
Third, who began in 1789, and was deposed in 1807, 
and Mahmoud the Second, whose reign went on 
till 1839, the Ottoman power had to struggle with manv 
enemies. Besides the wars, first with France and 
then with Russia, the subject nations, both Christian 
and Mahometan, were trying to become independent. 
The great Pashas or governors of the distant pro- 
vinces tried to set up for themselves, just like the 



XII.] DECLINE OF THE TURKS. 137 

State of things at the breaking up of the Caliphate. 
In Albania both the Christians of Souli and the 
Mahometan Ali Pasha withstood the Turkish power ; 
and, to the north of them, the Christians of Cerna- 
gora or Montenegro had never been conquered at 
all. Northward again, Servia revolted, and, when 
it was conquered, it revolted again, till it became, as it 
still is, a separate state under the Sultan's supe- 
riority. In Egypt too the Mamelukes had become 
practically independent. It was the policy of Russia 
to stir up discontent among all the subject nations, 
especially among those which belonged to the Eastern 
Church. 

13. America. — The new constitution of the 
United States came into force in the same year 
in which the French Revolution began. Both Wash- 
ington and several Presidents after him were very able 
rulers. Many states were added to the Union in the 
west, and in 1803 the United States bought the terri- 
tory of Louisiana, which Spain had again given back 
to France. Slavery was abolished in all the Northern 
States, and almost the only check to the advance of 
the Union was the two years' war with England. 
Meanwhile, when Spain was overrun by the French, 
the Spanish colonies in America began to set up for 
themselves, as the English colonies had done. 
Mexico and Chili both revolted in 1810. Mexico 
was recovered for a while, but it revolted again in 1820, 
as Peru did also. Also in the Island of Hayti or 
Saint Domingo, in the West Indies, which, at the 
beginning of the Revolution, belonged partly to France 
and partly to Spain, the negroes in both parts of the 
island set up for themselves. There have been many 
revolutions in all these countries, and for a while both 
in Hayti and in Mexico men of different colours 
called themselves Emperors, as Buonaparte did in 
France. But, in the end, all the Spanish American 
states but Brazil became commonwealths. 



138 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

14. Summary. — Thus, in less than one generation, 
Europe was more changed than it had ever been before 
in so short a time. Nowhere had all old ideas, both 
good and bad, been so thoroughly cast away as they 
now were in France and wherever France had influence. 
But, though much good perished with the bad, and 
though France has never had a lasting government 
since, yet the change was on the whole for good. 
In no part of Europe has there been since that 
time so much corruption and oppression as there 
was in many parts before. The wars of those 
times also paved the way for the events of our own 
day, especially for the union of Germany and Italy 
into great nations. France at the end of the war 
came out with her old boundaries and with a king of 
the old dynasty ; but her whole social and political state 
was utterly changed. In Germany the Empire had 
changed into a lax confederation, in which the two 
great states of Prussia and Austria were sure to be 
rivals. Spain and Portugal had got back their old 
dynasties. Italy was still cut up into small states, 
chiefly under the influence of Austria. In Switzerland 
the old distinctions had been wiped out, and the whole 
land had become an equal confederation. The Nether- 
lands had been joined into a single kingdom. The 
Scandinavian kingdoms had been quite changed by 
Sweden losing her possessions in Finland and Germany, 
and by Norway, which had so long been joined with 
Denmark, having the same King as Sweden. Russia 
had grown at every point, and Poland had been set 
up again as a separate, though not an independent, 
kuigdom. The power of the Ottoman Turks was 
weakened in every way, and the Christian nations 
under their yoke were striving for, and some of 
them winning, their independence. 



XIII.] FEELING OF NATIONALITY, 139 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. 

1. Character of the Time. — We have now 
come to our own times, times which have been 
as full of great events . as any times before them. 
What most distinguishes the changes of our own 
day has been that most of them have been brought 
about through the feeling of nationality — that 
is, through the wish of men who speak the same 
tongue, and feel that they belong to the same 
nation, to come together under one government. 
This has been shown, above all things, by the joining 
together of the German and ItaHan nations, after each 
of them had been so long split up into many small 
states. A long peace has been followed by many 
wars, and those wars have been carried on with 
much greater armies, and finished in a much shorter 
time, than the wars of earlier times. In our times 
France has not been the centre of everything in the 
way in which it was during the wars which followed 
the French Revolution \ still we cannot understand 
what went on anywhere else without knowing what 
was going on in France at the same time. So our 
account of the last sixty years will best begin with 
a sketch of the later revolutions of France. 

2. The Revolutions of France. — After the final 
overthrow of Buonaparte, Lewis the Eighteenth came 
back and reigned as a constitutional king, though 
many people about him wished to have the old state of 
things back again. Then came his brother Charles 
the Tenth, the last King who was crowmed at Rheims 
and called himself King of France. In July 
1830 he put forth some proclamations which were 



140 HIST OR Y OF EUR OPE. [chap. 

wholly against the law ; so he was driven out, and his 
kinsman Louis-Philippe Duke of Orleans was 
made king with the title of King of the French, 
and a freer constitution. In his time, Louis- Napo- 
leon Buonaparte, a nephew of the former Buona- 
parte, twice tried to disturb the King's government. 
The first time he was let go free ; the second time he 
was imprisoned, but escaped. In February 1848 
Louis-Philippe himself was driven out, and a Republic 
was set up. In June of the same year, a revolt of 
the extreme Republicans was put down by General 
Cavaignac. For this service many people wished 
to make him the first President of the new common- 
wealth, like Washington in the United States. But 
meanwhile Louis-Napoleon Buonaparte had been 
allowed to come back, and, when the time of voting 
came, he was chosen by many votes over Cavaignac. 
He was to be President for four years, and he swore 
to be faithful to the commonwealth. But in Decem- 
ber 1 85 1 he rose up against the commonwealth, 
dissolved the Assembly by force, caused many men 
to be slain in the streets, and imprisoned and banished 
many others. Then he called himself President of 
the Republic for. ten years, and in December 1852 
he called himself Emperor of the French, like 
his uncle. 

3. The Wars of France. — Both during the 
reigns of the three Kings and under the Republic, 
France had no great wars. She put down the pirate 
state of Algiers, and made that part of Africa into 
a French colony. And, when Rome became a re- 
jjublic as well as France, French troops were sent 
to put the Roman Republic down. When Louis- 
Napoleon Buonaparte first called himself Emperor, he 
said that the Empire should be peace. But in his 
time France was at war w4th the three chief powers 
of the continent, one after another. In 1854, when 
there was a quarrel between Russia and Turkey^ 



XIII.] ^VAJ^ OF FRANCE AND GERMANY, 141 

France made war on Russia together with Eng- 
land. In 1859, when there was a quarrel between 
Austria and Sardinia, France made war on Austria. 
When peace was made, Nizza and Savoy, the last 
remains of the Burgundian possessions of the King 
of Sardinia, were given to France. Lastly in 1870, 
when there was talk of a distant kinsman of the King 
of Prussia being made King of Spain, France made 
war on Prussia, and the French troops crossed the 
German frontier. But all Germany fought for Prussia. 
The German troops entered France, w^on many 
battles, besieged and took Paris, and, when peace 
was made, France had to give back the German land 
of Elsass and part of Lorraine, so that the French 
frontier no longer reaches to the Rhine. By 
this time France was again a commonwealth. For 
early in the war Buonaparte was taken prisoner, and, 
when this was known in Paris, he w^as deposed, and 
a Republic proclaimed. M. Thiers, who had been 
minister under Louis-Philippe, was soon after 
chosen President of the Republic, and peace was 
made with Germany. Soon after this Paris was 
held by the Communists or extreme republicans, 
and had to be besieged and taken again. Since 
then, M. Thiers has resigned, and in 1874, Marshal 
MacMahon was made President for seven years. 

4. The Union of Germany. — After the German 
Confederation was set up in 18 15, though most of the 
princes forgot their promises to their subjects, yet 
things on the whole tended towards union. In 18 18 
Prussia began the ZoUverein or Customs Union, 
which was gradually joined by most of the German 
states. Its members levied no duties on merchan- 
dize passing from one to another, but only at the 
common frontier. In 1848 there were revolutions 
in Prussia, Austria, and other German states, and a 
fruitless attempt was made to join Germany more 
closely together under an Emperor and a common 



142 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Parliament. In 1866 a war broke out between 
Prussia and Austria, in which the German states 
took different sides. Prussia speedily got the better, 
and, by the peace, the German Confederation came 
to an end. Austria was altogether shut out from 
Germany. Hanover and some other states were 
annexed to Prussia, and the other northern states 
were formed into the North-German Confede- 
ration, under the presidency of Prussia. During 
the war with France the southern states also joined 
the Confederation. And, while the siege of Paris was 
going on, King William of Prussia received the title 
of German Emperor from the German princes 
and free cities. Thus, as the German lands held by 
France were given back, all Germany, except Austria 
and the other German possessions of the Austrian 
house, is now more closely joined together than it 
had ever been since the great Interregnum. Each 
state of the Empire keeps its own government and 
assembly, and there is the Emperor and Assembly of 
all Germany over all. 

5. The Union of Italy.— From 1815 to 1848 
there were some conspiracies and insurrections in 
Italy, but the land was kept down under the power of 
Austria and the princes supported by Austria. In the 
Sardinian states only, where Charles Albert began 
to reign in 1831, there was, though not as yet freedom, 
yet national spirit. In 1846 the present Pope Pius 
the Ninth began to reign, and at first favoured reform 
and freedom. Then in 1848 most parts of Italy rose. 
Sicily chose a King separate from Naples; Rome 
and Venice became commonwealths ; Milan also rose 
against Austria. Charles Albert made war against 
Austria, but he was defeated at Novara in 1849 and 
abdicated. The Pope and the other princes now 
came back, and freedom was everywhere put down by 
the Austrians and French. Only in the Sardinian 
states Victor Emmanuel reigned as a constitu- 



XIII.] UNION OF ITALY. 143 

tional King. In 1859 war arose between him and 
Austria, in which Sardinia was helped by France. 
Buonaparte promised to free Italy from the Alps to 
the Hadriatic \ but, though the iVustrians were beaten 
and had to give up Lombardy, they were allowed to 
keep Venetia. Now too Savoy and Nizza were taken 
by France. Then the two Sicilies were delivered by 
Garibaldi, and joined to the kingdom of Victor 
Emmanuel, to which all the other Italian states joined 
themselves wherever they could. Only at Rome the 
French still kept the Pope in power. Thus in i86-i 
Victor Emmanuel was made King of Italy. Then 
in 1866, when Prussia and Austria were at war, Italy 
joined Prussia, and Austria had to give up Venetia. 
Lastly in 1870, when the French were at war with 
Germany, they could no longer keep their troops at 
Rome ; so Rome too became free, and is now the 
capital of Italy. Thus the House of Savoy has lost 
all its dominions beyond the Alps, but has gained the 
Kingdom of all Italy. 

6. Hungary, Austria^and Poland. — After the 
peace, Francis the First of Hungary, who had 
been the last Emperor Francis the Second, went 
on reigning in Hungary, Austria, and his other do- 
minions, including the Austrian part of Poland, till his 
death in 1836, when he was succeeded by Ferdinand 
the Fifth. Meanwhile Alexander reigned over 
Russia and the new kingdom of Poland, till his death 
in 1825, when he was succeeded by Nicholas. The 
union of Russia and Poland did not answer. The 
Polish constitution was often broken; so in 1831 the 
Poles revolted, but the revolt was put down, and 
their constitution was taken away. In 1863 the 
Poles revolted again against the present Russian Em- 
peror Alexander the Second. And when this 
revolt was put down, the Polish kingdom was quite 
swept away. Between the two revolts, in 1846, the 
commonwealth of Cracow was annexed to Austria. 



144 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. 

Thus all traces of Polish freedom have been swept away. 
But in the neighbouring land of Hungary the old 
freedom has been won back again. In 1847 and 1848, 
there were revolutions in Hungary and Austria. Fer- 
dinand abdicated and was succeeded in Austria by 
Francis Joseph ; but the Hungarians would not 
acknowledge the abdication, which was not made after 
their laws, and after a while they set up a common- 
wealth. Hungary was then conquered by Austria with 
the help of Russia, and it remained crushed till the war 
between Austria and Prussia. Then Hungary and 
Austria were joined as separate states under a common 
sovereign, and Francis Joseph was lawfully crowned 
King of Hungary in 1867. Since then Hungary 
and Austria have agreed well together ; but there have 
been discontents among some of the other nations 
which also form part of the dominions of the Austrian 
House. 

7. Spain and Portugal. — After Ferdinand the 
Seventh of Spain came back, there were several risings, 
because the new constitution was not kept. At last, in 
1822, it was altogether set aside by the help of French 
troops. When Ferdinand died in 1833, a civil war 
went on till 1840 between the partisans of his daughter 
Isabel and those of his brother Charles or Don 
Carlos, who was favoured by the Basque lands in the 
north. There were several other disturbances and 
insurrections, but Isabel reigned till she was driven 
out in 1868. In 1870 Amadeus, son of the King 
of Italy, was chosen king. In 1873 he abdicated, 
and a republic was set up, but much confusion fol- 
lowed. In 1875 the son of Isabel was called back as 
Alfonso the Twelfth, and meanwhile another 
Don Carlos, a grandson of the old one, has been 
carrying on a civil war in the Basque lands. Besides 
all this, Spain has also had disputes with the one 
great colony which she has left, namely, the island of 
Cuba. In Portugal also there was for a while much 



XIII.] SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 145 

confusion and civil wars. After the Peace, John the 
Sixth, King of Portugal and Brazil, stayed for 
some years in Brazil, the only time that an European 
state has been governed from the New World. In 
1822 Brazil separated from Portugal, but, unlike all 
other American states, it became a constitutional 
monarchy under the King's son, Don Pedro or 
Peter. He reigned in Brazil as Emperor, and, 
when he succeeded to the crown of Portugal, he 
gave up both crowns, that of Portugal to his daughter 
Maria, and that of Brazil to his son Pedro. Since 
then the two crowns have been separate, and Brazil 
has gone on better than any other South-American 
state. In Portugal there was a civil war for a 
while between Don Pedro, as Regent for his daughter 
Maria, and his younger brother Don Miguel or 
Michael, who reigned from 1828 to 1832. Then 
Maria was acknowledged. Since then, under Queen 
Maria and her son the present King Lewis, there have 
been some disputes and risings, but no serious change. 

8. The Netherlands. — The union of all the 
Netherlands into a single kingdom did not answer. 
For the northern parts, which had been the United 
Provinces, and the southern, which had been, first the 
Spanish, and then the Austrian, Netherlands, differed 
in religion, and to some extent in language. In 1830, 
the southern provinces revolted, and the kingdom was 
divided. The House of Orange went on reigning 
in the north as Kings of the Netherlands, while 
the south became the Kingdom of Belgium. Its 
first king was Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whose son of 
the same name is the present king. Since then both 
kingdoms have been constitutionally governed. There 
have been disputes about the Duchy of Luxem- 
burg, w^hich was held by the King of the Netherlands 
as a member of the German Confederation, and Lux- 
emburg has been declared neutral. 

9. Switzerland. — Since 18 15 the boundaries of 



146 HISTORY OF EUROPE, [chap. 

Switzerland have not changed, nor has the Confedera- 
tion been at war with any other state ; but there have 
been great internal changes.- In 183 1 there were 
disputes in many of the cantons, which ended in their 
governments being made more popular. In 1847 
there was even a civil war between the CathoHc and 
Protestant cantons. In the next year 1848 the tie 
between the cantons was made much closer by a new 
Federal Constitution, which is in many things 
like that of the United States, only, instead of ^a 
single President, there is a Council of Seven with 
much smaller powers. In 1874 this constitution was 
again revised ; the powers of the cantons were again 
lessened, and those of the Federal body increased. 

10. The Scandinavian Kingdoms. — In Swe- 
den and Norway there has been no revolution or 
gre.-^.t change of any kind since the Peace. The kings 
of the House of Bernadotte have reigned over 
both kingdoms, each keeping its own separate con- 
stitution. In Sweden of late years the constitution 
has been improved, and more religious liberty given. 
But in Denmark this has been a time of great changes. 
The kings remained absolute till 1848, when Frede- 
rick the Seventh, on coming to the crown, at once 
gave his people a free constitution. But disputes 
arose between the Kingdom of Denmark and the 
two Duchies, Holstein, which is wholly German, 
and which was a member of the German Confedera- 
tion, and Sleswick, w^hich was not a member of the 
Confederation, and where the people are German in 
the south and Danish in the north. There was fight- 
ing about this till 185 1, but then Denmark kept both 
Duchies. In 1864, under the present King Christian 
the Ninth, there was another war, after which the 
Duchies were given up to Prussia and Austria together. 
Since the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866, 
they have been kept by Prussia only. The northern 
part of Sleswick was to have been given back to 



XIII.] INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE. 147 

Denmark, but this has not been done. In 1874 a 
constitution was given to Iceland, which forms part 
of the Danish dominions. 

II. Russia, Turkey, and Greece. — During 
this time there have still been wars between Russia 
and Turkey, and several parts of the Turkish do- 
minions have been cut oft'. In 1821 the Greeks 
revolted in most parts of the Turkish dominions, and 
in Greece itself the Greek and Albanian inhabitants, 
with a little help from the other subject nations and 
much more from volunteers from Western Europe, 
were able to hold their ground against the Turks. But 
in 1827, Sultan Mahmoud asked help of Mahomet 
All, the Pasha of Egypt, who had made himself nearly 
independent, and between them the Greeks might 
have been altogether crushed, had not England, 
France, and Russia, stepped in and destroyed the 
Turkish fleet at Pylos or Navarino in 1827. Then 
the French drove out the Egyptians, and Greece be- 
came free. The first King, Otho of Bavaria, was 
turned out in 1862, and was succeeded by George 
of Denmark ; and in 1864 the Ionian Islands 
were added to the kingdom. Meanwhile there was 
war between Russia and Turkey in 1828, by which 
some further advantages were gained by Russia. 
Then came wars with Mahomet Ali of Egypt, which 
ended in 1841 by Egypt becoming practically in- 
dependent. Then in 1854 another war began between 
Russia and Turkey, in which England, France, and 
Sardinia, gave help to the Turks. By the Peace in 
1856, the Russian frontier was moved away from the 
Danube, as the frontier of France has since been 
moved away from the Rhine. The Rouman princi- 
palities, Moldavia and Wallachia, have been made 
into a principality which is practically independent. 
In 1875 the Christians in the Turkish provinces of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina revolted, and war is still 
going on there. Meanwhile Russia has made great 



148 HISTORY OF EUROPE.. [chap. 

advances in different parts of Asia, and the present 
Emperor Alexander has made a great reform at 
home by setting free the serfs. 

12. Great Britain and Ireland. — Our own 
history during this time consists chiefly of reforms at 
home, and of both warfare and colonization in distant 
parts. We have had no great European warfare, ex- 
cept the war with Russia in 1854. All Great Britain 
has long been firmly knit together. But in Ireland, 
notwithstanding all efforts to put Ireland and Great 
Britain on a level, the remembrance of old wrongs 
still keeps up a spirit of disaffection. The British 
colonies have vastly extended themselves in North 
America, South Africa, and above all in Australia, 
and most of these have received constitutions which 
make them nearly independent in their internal affairs. 
In 1837 there was a revolt of the French Canadians ; 
but since then Canada has been highly prosperous, 
and has been joined with some of the other North- 
American colonies into a single Federal body. The 
slave-trade in our colonies was forbidden in 1807, ^^^ 
slavery itself was abolished in 1833. In India the 
British power has greatly advanced, and several pro- 
vinces have been annexed. In 1858 the native 
soldiers mutinied, and, after the mutiny was quelled, 
the government of India was taken from the Company 
and given to the Crown ; so that the Queen is now 
direct sovereign of India. And the great extent of 
our colonies and distant possessions has led us into 
several wars in various parts of the world, as with 
China, Persia, Abyssinia, and the Ashantees 
in Africa. Thus, throughout this time. Great Britain 
has been more and more taking the position of an 
insular power, having less dealings than before with 
the continent of Europe, but more with t;he world in 
general. 

13. America. — In the United States this has 
been a time of great advance and of great changes. 



XIII.] CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. 149 

Many new states have been formed to the West, and 
the territory of the Union has long reached to the 
Pacific Ocean. But the only external war which the 
States have had was the one with Mexico. The 
great dominion of Texas has also been separated 
from Mexico, and has become part of the United 
States. But the great event in American history has been 
the war between the Northern and Southern States 
which began in 1861. Several causes led to it, the chief 
being that slavery, wdiich had long died out in the 
North, still went on in the South. When Abraham 
Lincoln was chosen President in i860, South 
Carolina seceded. The other Southern States soon 
followed her, and set up a separate Confederation 
called the Confederate States, under Jefferson 
Davis as President. The war went on till 1865, when 
the South had to submit. Since then the Union has been 
put together again, and slavery has been done away 
with in all parts of it. Meanwhile in 1862, England, 
France, and Spain, all had a quarrel with Mexico. 
Matters were soon settled with England and Spain, 
but Erance went on, and tried to set up the Austrian 
Archduke Maximilian with the title of Emperor. 
But he was never acknowledged by the whole country, 
and in 1867 he was overthrown and shot by the 
native President Juares. Thus Brazil still remains 
the only monarchy in the new world. 

14, Summary. — Thus in the last sixty years, and 
especially in the last tw^enty years, the w^orld has been 
greatly changed. In Europe France has again, for 
the third time, tried to get the chief power, but she has 
been beaten back more thoroughly than at any time 
before. Germany and Italy have been joined together 
into great nations, though the union of Germany is 
less close than the union of Italy. Austria has with- 
drawn from Germany and Italy to be joined under 
one sovereign with the independent kingdom of Hun- 
gary. In Sweden and Norway the same union of two 



I50 HISTORY OF EUROPE. [chap. xiii. 

kingdoms under one king has gone on and prospered, 
while in Russia and Poland it soon broke down, and 
Poland, as a separate state, has been quite wiped out. 
Denmark has been cut short by the loss of the 
Duchies; and the Netherlands have been cut into 
two separate kingdoms. The Ottoman Empire has 
lost at all points. Greece has become quite indepen- 
dent, and Servia, the Danubian Principalities, and 
Egypt nearly so. Notwithstanding the check of the 
Crimean war, the power of Russia remains great m 
Europe, and it has greatly increased in Asia. In 
other parts of the world this time has been marked by 
the wonderful advance of the EngHsh-speaking people 
everywhere, both in the British colonies and in the 
United States. On the whole, the world has greatly 
gained since the great changes at the end of the last 
century. Nearly every country is far better off than 
it was. But the tendency of these later times has 
been to group Europe together under a few great 
powers, to lessen the importance of the smaller 
states, and even wholly to wipe out cities and king- 
doms which did great things in past times. But, how- 
ever we may regret this evil, it is not to be set against 
the general advance in freedom and good government, 
as well as in all manner of useful inventions, which 
marks the times in which we live. 



THE END. 



1 



NICHOLSON'S GEOLOGY. 

Text-Book of Geology^ for Schools and Colleges* 

By H. Alleyne Nicholson, M. D., D. Sc, M. A., Ph. D., 
F. R. S. E., F. G. S., etc., Professor of Natural History 

and Botany in University College, Toronto. m \ 

x2mo, 2t(> pages. Price, $1.30. 

This work Is thoroughly adapted for the use of beginners. At the Same 

time the subject is treated with such fulness as to render the work suitable foi 

advanced classes, while it is intended to serve as an introduction to a largei 

work which is in course of preparation by the author. j^ ■ 

NICHOLSON'S ZOOLOGY. 

Text-Book of Zoology, fof Schools and Colleges, 

BY SAME AUTHOR AS ABOVE. 

i2mo. 353 pages. Price, $1.50. 

In this volume much more space has been devoted, comparatively speakinf 

to the Invertebrate Animals, than has usually been the case in works of tb 

nature; upon the belief that all teachings of Zoology should, where possiblv 

be accompanied by practical work, while the young student is much mon 

likely to busy himself practically with shells, insects, corals, and the like, tha : 

with the larger and less attainable Vertebrate Animals. 

Considerable space has been devoted to the discussion of the principles ( , 

Zoological classification, and the body of the work is prefaced by a synoptic; 

view of the chief divisions of the animal kingdom. ^ ' 

*^* A copy of any of the above works, for examination, will be sent by mai ! 

pwUpaid, to any Teacher or School-Officer remitting one-half its price. i 

I). APPLETON & CO., Publishers, | 

S49 & SP Broadway, New Yori i 



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